In the tapestry of the cosmos, the stars have always been the celestial timekeepers, etching the passage of time into the vast expanse of the universe. And just as the luminescence from the stars takes years to reach us, memories often take time to reveal their true brilliance… 

I can still remember the day I signed up for the last slot for participant blogs, thinking I had all the time in the world to plan and prepare for the final day. But before I knew it, my roommate and I quickly swept our dorm room of our personal belongings and took one long, silent look around for the last time. It was difficult to imagine leaving the place we had accidentally called “home” one too many times. As we walked the familiar path to the closing ceremony, it felt strange knowing there would be no usual morning lecture. Little did I expect that we would shed tears over certificate hand-offs, yet Prisha, Ms. Martinez, Lara, Isbaah, and I couldn’t help but do so.

And thus, back to the lobby of RGH we went, bidding the PSet Dungeon one last farewell. After deadlifting our luggage out the door, emotions ran high as we bid teary-eyed goodbyes to our friends, Dr. Rengstorf, Dr. Andersen, Ms. Martinez, Lara, Kathryn, Joel, and Benji who had all become an integral part of our unforgettable journey. (To be honest, despite my initial fear of Dr. Rengstorf, he became one of the people I would miss the most from my time at SSP). As we hugged and exchanged heartfelt words, we realized that the knowledge we gained was only a fraction of what we took away from those cherished weeks. 

Reluctantly, we all filed onto the bus, awaited our departure, and cried (once again…) while listening to Ms. Martinez’s final announcement as she relinquished her role as our “second mom” for the summer and sent us off on our way. Waving to Hyde, Sophie, and the TAs who ran alongside the bus for our last goodbyes, our hearts were heavy with the weight of parting.

On the way to the airport, reminiscing with Ashley and sharing a meal with Rachel and Velvet brought a sense of closure. TSA security and the departure process became a blur, but the emotional impact of saying goodbye to 36 best friends remained deeply felt, and hope lingered for a chance to meet them again. There were LOTS of tears, and to put it into perspective, we probably produced enough tears to collectively save 72 plastic water bottles (beat that, Elkay EZH20 water filling station). 

But yeah… jokes aside, our final moments together at the airport made me realize how lucky I was to have had the chance to meet all of you, and I’m so thankful that we were able to exchange stories, jokes, ambitions, and lots of memories together. As I finally flew over my hometown, greeted by the familiar lights, it felt different without you guys. Yet, the stars remained constant, unwavering in their vigil, as if to remind me that though we may be apart, the bonds we made under their watchful gaze would never fade. 

Now, as I look into those same stars, I don’t recall the nature of light and its journey to the eyes of those on Earth. Rather, they remind me that the light of human connection over karaoke and “trivial” jokes can transcend the boundaries of time and space. These beacons will remind me of the past when we ran through the broken sprinklers, swing-danced in the monsoon rain, and conversed under the night sky with midnight ramen – the moments when we were truly young astronomers, exploring the universe and our place within it.

About me:

Hey!! I’m Clarice from Santa Clarita, California! In my free time, I love watching video essays, visiting museums, and exploring the city with friends. At SSP, you can find me trying to recover lost files (sorry TAs), Mission Impossible-ing my way into bed after hours (sorry Alex), and crying to Space Song by Beach House over non-functioning Python code. Shoutout to Team 8 uNEAcorns – Deniz and Tony – for an incredible summer!

The post A Glimpse of Us first appeared on SSP International.

I was in Taos Dining hall, doing my first dinner time announcement, and frankly, I was feeling a little bit dizzy. I wasn’t even speaking, Prisha did all the talking. 

Sign-ups are out, please make sure you put your act for Monday…

All I had to do was stand there and curse myself for ever auditioning for the Talent show’s emcee role. How am I going to handle talking for a whole night to a crowded room when I can’t even speak at dinner?!? 

Monday came and went, and I can only say that I am so incredibly glad that I took on the role. Not humble bragging, but Prisha and I killed it. Beyond being glad, I can say it was a true honor to have introduced all that talent to the classroom/stage. 

Here are some highlights:

Illana simultaneously solved two rubix cubes, one in each hand, whilst also reciting a digit of pi for each move. Oh, and she was blindfolded. CRAZY! 

The Backstreet Asians sung “I Want it That Way”. Sri can (kind of) sing well! I’m also pretty sure some of the guys in the front row fainted.

Dr. Rengstorf recited a poem about what teachers do. It made me cry a little but I had to quickly pull myself together to announce the next act. 

My friends and I did a mashup dance of Kpop and Pakistani pop, choreographed and taught by the lovely Isbaah and Clarice. When it came our turn, me and my co-emcee quickly brushed off suit jackets and sported our Kpop looks.

String Theory a string quartet gave a beautiful performance, during this Benji did… interpretive dance? 

And the TAs continued to lie to us on where they actually went on their day off. Someone also moo’d.

As Prisha and I took our final bow and congratulated all the participants, I thought about how far we had all come. Academically, SSP takes you out of your comfort zone and then launches you in orbit. But socially, the choice to leave your comfort zone is yours alone. Performing in front of everyone, deciding to take on a new responsibility, all the scary things that we have tackled along the way was done by us.

And in the end, if you keep doing the things you fear, you will look back on the many experiences of a lifetime. 

The post 2023 Talent Show: Stars on Earth first appeared on SSP International.

Starting off the day, we knew that by the end, we would have reached the conclusion of our academic journey at SSP- we would’ve submitted our Orbit Determination report. One Google Form submission and we’re done, right? Not quite, unless to you one submission means 12 hours of just drafting, along with a 5 week effort of collecting, analysing and crying over blurry pictures of an (approximately 5 pixel spanning) asteroid. 

This one submission has, I’m sure, taken years off of all our collective lives, but every second was worth it, for the instantaneous euphoria and relief we felt when handing in the cover of our reports (because printing the entire reports would’ve been a crime against humanity) to a Dr. Andersen-cosplaying-Dr. Rengstorf. The entire process was a very full-circle moment- reminiscent of our submission at SSP, the Asteroid Proposal. As brought to my attention by Hyde, our resident talent show-act-messing-up professional, this last high stakes submission had a lot in common with our very first somewhat high stakes submission (I say somewhat because I was later informed by Dr. R that asteroid assignments were, to an extent, pre-decided). We were all working with our observing teams, had basically no idea what was going on, thought that this one Google (or LaTex) Document could make or break our SSP experience, and were cowering in our boots thinking of the moment this mess of words was due. The feeling was much too similar to be ignored- except for a few differences. Except for the fact that we were all (statistically) significantly more knowledgeable than we were when we walked out those doors that said El Paso Airport, Texas (who knew New Mexico wasn’t just another part of the great state of Texas?). Except for the fact that now when I looked at the numerous differential equations in the Math Problem Sets, I knew what was going on. Except for the fact that I wasn’t horrified by the fact that I had to write an Orbit Determination code, I already had a written OD code. Except for the fact that I was a changed person, sitting behind my Windows laptop screen, typing away; I was a different person than who I was five weeks ago, we all were. 

As we approached the last hour of the day, as previously mentioned, a bowtie-wearing-Dr. Rengstorf, projected a timer (that was accurate to the millisecond, might I add), counting down to midnight- our deadline. After our final proofreading (an exaggeration; we barely skimmed it), my team and I decided to submit our report by clicking the submit button together, and became the second team to submit our report. And yes, the spreadsheet tracking the Google Forms submission was also being projected, if the millisecond timer wasn’t enough reminder of slipping time. 

Once submitted, we decided to take a walk outside the infamous dungeon, in the Vivian-approximated 40 miles per hour New Mexico winds. Surrounded by vivid streaks of lightning (also videographed by Vivian), I realised how much closer I was to my teammates, and how much I was going to miss working and spending time with them- may it be trying and failing to AutoFocus, calling Zach (NMSU telescope top-dog) at midnight or going cloud-watching at 2 am. Trauma did really bond us to each other. Well, that is probably a justifiable argument for all the friendships we made at the Student Suffering Program. 

Adhering to the numerous neon-orange sticky notes on the door, we made our way back to the Biology Annex with the Astronomy classroom by 11:55 pm, where we saw the same relief we felt submitting our report take over the faces of our dearest friends, and then proceeded to fight those same people in a battle to the death over stickers to be stuck for our respective teams on the progress chart. 

Shortly after, we were all pleasantly surprised by Domino’s Pizza, which- safe to say- was the best tasting pizza I have had in my entire life (pizza six hours after dinner at 1 am do be hitting different). Despite the fact that the pizza was indeed a surprise, the most surprising part about that extravaganza wasn’t the pizza itself, rather it was the fact that we were eating the pizza inside the dungeon. Moments before the heavenly boxes of pizza were bestowed upon us, our TA, Toothless, had prohibited my teammate and I from eating a measly granola bar (that he had given to us) inside the classroom. So you can imagine my surprise when all 42 of us were eating pizza and drinking pink-coloured drinks within the confines of our classroom– my bad– dungeon.

As we walked back to the dorms at an unrespectable hour, we realised how much we had accomplished in a mere five weeks, and how far we’d come- not only as students, but as people, as teammates, as roommates, and as a family. For my friends and I, we proceeded to hang out (within the boundaries and our curfew of course) right outside our dorm building, laughing and lamenting over all the memories we’d made; including one we made mere minutes ago, when a girl who totally wasn’t drunk screamed she loved us at the top of her lungs (shoutout to my ogs: rachel, arjun and sri). Laying down in my bed that night, I knew I had my answer about the question I had asked myself at the beginning of SSP- will this truly be the best summer of my life? I’ll leave figuring out what my answer was to you, as an exercise to the reader.

The post One and done/ an exercise to the reader first appeared on SSP International.

This Friday, we had our last lecture from both Dr. Anderson and Dr. Rengstorf. I still can’t believe SSP is gonna end in less than a week. I remember the first few days being here stressing out on all the psets, screaming at the bugs and dying over the hot weather. Time in SSP went by so fast and I don’t think I’m ready to say goodbye. Say goodbye to all the classmates I work on the extremely hard psets with, say goodbye to friends who I cry with, and say goodbye to my teammates who I spend many nights observing with. SSP indeed gives me a life changing experience and it is one of the best summers I’ve experienced. 

Going back to what happened today. My MONTE CARLO code was not working!! I spent hours debugging my code and still got a 136 for my uncertainty value By then I was so frustrated, the MPC report was due in a few hours and my uncertainty didn’t even make sense. But being in SSP actually trains me to keep working even under a frustrated situation. Luckily I was able to get a working code by receiving help from multiple classmates. Even though I didn’t have enough time to run the monte carlo 10 million times, I managed to get it to run 10,000 times. We turned in our MPC report a few minutes before it was due. It was an interesting experience.

Going back to the dorm, me and Bailey decided to put on face masks and watch an episode of gossip girl to relax before tomorrow’s big task, OD report. Watching gossip girl with Bailey is actually very chaotic. I’m team S and she’s team B. We argued a lot but it was very fun. It sort of helped me relieve my stress and nervousness for tomorrow’s report. The OD report will be a reflection of everything we learned and worked on this summer. I want it to be my best effort so I can look back in the future and be proud of this amazing summer at SSP. Let’s hope everything goes well. 

About me:

Hi guys, this is Victoria from Irvine, California. Academically, I am more of a stem person. I enjoy physics and computer science. Outside of school, I love watching k dramas and going to the beach. At SSP, you can find me struggling to wake up every morning, trying to stay awake during lecture and asking help for psets.

The post Last lecture + Monte Carlo !!! first appeared on SSP International.

Hello, I am Yujie Lu and this is officially the last day of SSP. I am truly grateful for having the opportunity to meet everyone. Before arriving, I was worried and nervous. I thought SSP would be just like any other research program I’ve attended, but it was certainly not. The SSP experience is truly special, bringing together 36 participants, each with their own unique backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. It may not seem possible, but with only five and a half weeks, we were all able to connect and make lifelong connections.

As I woke up this morning, everything felt unreal. SSP was supposedly a 6 weeks program, but it only felt like a moment. After spending every second of the last month with everyone, I was about to simply return to my normal life. While departing from Purdue, we said our final goodbye to Selin, Grant, Nirbaan, Nikhil, Evelyn, Sophia, Ethan, Harika, Melike, Rachel, Austin, Paige, Hugo, Martin, Mrs. Latus, Dr. M and Dr. Das. The realization of leaving everyone had finally set in and the entire hour-long ride to the airport felt silent. 

In the airport, I had the chance to say final goodbyes to the participants who were not driving. Due to a SouthWest policy, Justin, Kieran, and I were not able to get past security until 1:40. As soon as we passed, we were told that we missed Kai, Conan, Angela, Rachael, Georgia, and Sophie. However, we still had time to say goodbye to Kat. Afterwards, we met up with Josh and Ephraim and we ran to say goodbye to Steven and Andrew as they were already boarding. Next to leave were Eric, Allen, and Liam, and then, Stephanie and Haleigh also left. Soon after, Nina left, followed by Ephraim, Audrey, Aberam, Saketh and Gaston. It really felt like we were losing someone each hour. Finally, it was Justin, Kieran and my turn to leave and we said our goodbyes to Jones, Abby, and Josh. I will truly miss everyone and I cannot wait to meet them again. 

After a day filled with heartfelt departures, I want to emphasize the impact that this experience had on all of us. As I return to my normal life, I know that I am not the same person who first arrived at Purdue. The countless hours in the lab, challenging class activities, and the many memories we all shared have left lasting influences. In contrast to a rather gloomy day, I want to end SSP emphasizing these great memories. 

Thank you all for making these past few week’s amazing,

Yujie Lu

The post Final Day @ SSP Purdue first appeared on SSP International.

Ms. Bana said something along these lines the first week of the program, “Can you think of 5 nobel prize winners? The 5 richest people in the world? What about 5 Golden Glove winners? 5 Academy Award winners? It isn’t easy. Now, can you think of 5 friends? 5 teachers that have helped you? 5 people you enjoy being around? See, awards, achievements, and accomplishments are forgetten, buried with your grave. The people that make an impact on your life are not those with the greatest rewards or merits, it is those who care the most.” 

I bring up this anecdote because its truth has been displayed all throughout my time at SSP. Regardless of your background, whether you are the #1 student in Turkey, someone who images blackholes, or a SoundCloud rapper from Chicago, each and every one of you guys has provided me memories I will always cherish and remember. The time I have spent with you guys has forever changed my life, and I look forward to the spectacular things that your future brings. Thank you for everything SSP. 

I also made you guys a video (Please watch it): 

Anyways, I hope the video I made makes up for the poor blog

Hi everyone! Today, we all woke up and slithered to SBO to write donor cards and fill out the exit surveys. Afterwards, all the teams finalized their stickers and cleaned up Kitt and SBO. Despite it being the last day, everyone still had a smile on their face.

After procrastinating my packing, we all decided to go eat our last lunch at C4C (the photo below was taken by a stranger because Kara could not figure out the angle to take a selfie).

After eating lunch, we went on a Zoom call with the NMSU campus and saw Laurissa and Laura 2.0. We asked some questions and then played a game where we tried to find a look-a-like from the other campus. 

The Zoom call ended and we went to change and prepare for the group photos. Everybody was looking straight beautiful for the photos. Despite the cloudy sky and the turbulent winds, everyone still had a fantastic time taking pictures with each other.

We had our 2nd to last count off before going to our last dinner at C4C. At dinner, Uluc got everybody to eat a final lemon. After dinner, we went to listen to our guest speaker, Dr. Karen Morrison, talk about life advice as well as her career. Although a short presentation, her advice and words were very impactful.

After the guest speaker, we had our paper plate awards. There was some disagreement about my awarding of the “Most Rizz” Paper Plate, but they are haters. Below I have pictures of some of my favorite awards (Honorable Mentions: Best Adlibs, Most Photogenic, Most Likely to Be a Successful Rapper). We then transitioned to our talent show, where we learned about receding hairlines and embraced slam poetry.

Following the talent show, we went to iHOP and stayed up late since it was the last day. Since there was no curfew, most of us decided to stay up late singing and dancing to early 2016 songs and Bruno Mars. Everyone was having a great last night talking and spending time with each other, except Joshua. Joshua spent his night as a barista and serving free coffee.

The next morning, it was very sad since everyone was leaving. Everyone was also incredibly exhausted since most people pulled all nighters. There were a lot of tears shed during graduation, and we had the opportunity to meet some of the parents. We said our final goodbyes to the people that had their parents pick them up while the rest of us took a bus to the airport. After bag check-in and security check, we met up at Terminal B to eat lunch at Shake Shack. After saying my final goodbyes to everyone, I boarded and fell asleep for the entire duration of my flight.

Aaron

SSP 2023 CUB QoD Winner

SSP 2023 Most Rizz Paper Plate Award

My name is Aaron, and I go to Stephen F. Austin High School in Sugar Land, Texas. I enjoy playing sports such as basketball and volleyball with my friends as well as the violin. SSP has inspired to keep on shooting for the stars, and I will forever cherish the community we have built.

The post Only Memories, No Regrets first appeared on SSP International.

It’s our last Monday here! Hopefully everyone has enjoyed their time here and has grown a lot academically and personally. I have enjoyed every moment at SSP, and I will definitely miss every single person when I go back to Taiwan. Before everyone leaves, the faculty members have something to say to our participants! 

Austin:

Hugo:

Martin:

Paige:

Ms. Latus:

And finally, our two amazing professors

Dr. Das:

Dr. M:

Thank you faculty members for making this summer memorable. Congrats to all the participants for making it this far! Lastly, thank you everyone here for creating such beautiful memories together. 

Some of my highlights in SSP:

Group

Friends

Food

The post Day 36 @ SSP Purdue – Faculty Interviews first appeared on SSP International.

After not seeing Interstellar for many years, I was able to enjoy it in all its glory. I especially appreciated ALL of the physical accuracies that the producers took into consideration (the bookshelf scene in particular). Following the movie I went down to the basement to play some ping pong before returning to the common room only to see some of my friends practicing their act for the upcoming talent show. We then somehow roped Diego into bringing down his laptop to the common room and setting up an impromptu Karaoke night! With more and more people coming to join us, we sang song after song all night long (until curfew). Following this, I no longer had a functioning voice due to the immense passion with which I sang Taylor Swift. It was the perfect conclusion to the perfect day, and I know that I will greatly miss the people at SSP for years to come. 

Hi, my name is David and I am a rising senior at Eaglecrest High Schoolwid in Aurora, Colorado. I love tennis, spending time with friends and I hope to pursue physics in college. I loved being able to work with like minded people and expand my knowledge of astrophysics at a place like SSP. Although I am sad that the program is coming to an end, I would not change a thing about how the program went. Thank you all for an amazing summer!

The post SWRI or T-Swift? first appeared on SSP International.

My day began at 12AM after observations. My group had already finished our report on Friday, so we were using the telescopes to take pretty pictures and look at cool objects in the sky. Here’s a processed photo of the ring nebula that I created. 

The observation was the middle shift which is 5:00 to 6:00 UTC. Afterwards I came downstairs and hung out for a while with Rebecca, Aaron, and Dominick in the lab. I think we were answering Science Olympiad questions. 

(Left to right: Dominick, Rebecca, Aaron, and Me) 

My day began again when I woke up at around 10am to play tennis and practice my serves. Later on, we had a lecture (which was an abnormality- usually we don’t have lectures on Sunday, but since it is nearing the end, I don’t think there was anymore extra time). 

At 1pm the lecture began. Guest speakers from the SouthWest Research Institute came to help us program the orbit of our asteroid around 50 million years into the future. Team 2 Feynmints’s asteroid (1627 Ivar) mostly ejected out of the solar system but also had three clones (simulations) that hit into the Earth. But don’t fret, that’s like 3/60 chance and only 12 million years into the future.

The speakers from the SouthWest Research Institute also went over some concepts of chaos in our solar system and in the asteroid’s orbit which was super interesting to learn and talk about. They compared it to a double pendulum, where eventually if you have three begin moving at the same time from the same position, they eventually begin to diverge. I really found the unpredictability of the solar system incredible. 

Here’s an image that showcases the potential orbits of our asteroid!! 

(1627 Ivar – coolest asteroid) 

After that we had dinner! It was the last day with my assigned dinner group which was Ms. Bana, Lana, Ben, Leo, and David. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of us sitting together for dinner. 

My next table is with Laura (one of our TA’s) so I’m really excited. I think the assigned dinner has helped connect more with the staff and other SSPers which I’m really grateful for. 

Next after dinner, we had to finish up our data processing and I also processed some of the images we took from observation. The servers crashed so we left and watched Mean Girls as a group! (Unofficially until the servers were fixed). My work was pretty much finished anyways, I just had to go back to let the program run overnight. 

Later on, we practiced for the Talent Show!! 

Here’s everyone practicing! We won some kazoos from the arcade (field trip) and we’re using them to play in the Talent Show.

(From left to right: Jay, Ben, Cam, Rebecca, Christina, Me, and Marcus. Not pictured is Joshua, who took the image) 

My day ended with going to SBO to let my code run overnight, and then going back to the dorms and talking with my roommate Lillian. 

I’m going to miss SSP and am sad that it’s ending so soon (the weeks have flown by). I am truly grateful and want to thank everyone that helped make this experience so great. To the TA’s for being there to help us and guide us. To the professors that lectured, guided and helped us. To the staff that put this all together. To the guest speakers that came and spoke to us about their lives, careers, and research. To my team, the Feynmints for our collaboration and work put into programming, observing and PSETs. And finally, to all the people and friends I met at SSP, thank you for being there! 

I hope you enjoyed my blog! If you’re thinking about applying to SSP, you totally should! The experience is amazing and you learn something new everyday. 

Hey! My name’s Natalia and I’m from New York. I enjoy reading, playing tennis, and trying new things. I hope to study something in STEM, probably engineering (and possibly a minor in computer science).

The post (Almost) The End  first appeared on SSP International.

Hey guys we’re dying

Anyway

Today was a very normal, boring day, just like any other, one could say, if they were you, and you were normal;

and boring

Today I woke up and went to the lab

I really needed this

Then I went to the lab to work on my very important science stuff

I took everyone’s enzyme samples

And then we went to lunch

Death be upon her

After noon lab, we had dinner

Followed by field time

Okay bye sorry for the terrible prose

Also we made soup with somebody from another program but it went unrecorded

The post Day 35 @ SSP Purdue – Summer Senescence Program first appeared on SSP International.