Summer Science Program

One of my largest topics and favorite interest story happens to be about the Summer Science Program (SSP) high school kids who are here at New Mexico Tech for six weeks.

Thom suggested on Monday to talk to the program facilitators for SSP and find some way to do an in-depth article about them and what they are doing. I thought it would be nice to see what it was like to be a SSP student for the day. That task seems to be harder than I realized.

After getting my computer slightly upgraded (replaced the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and added speakers) , I called Leslie Clark, who coordinates the program here at NMT. The original program began in Ojal, California, and Tech plays host to the second SSP campus.

This is a side-note, thank goodness I got an upgrade to my computer system. I was running a computer with an old cathode-ray tube monitor that was close to dying and a wavy keyboard that really was uncomfortable to type on. Also, my old mouse was kinda stupid--it didn't have a scroll button! I'm thankful for the upgrades. In the next few weeks, I may inherit a better computer. Yay for hand-me-downs! The office received major upgrades to computers and I'm just cannibalizing computer parts to make my work space a little better.

Back to Summer Science. I talked to plenty of students to get a better perspective of what it is like to attend this program. I walked into their lass for the morning to get an understanding of the lecture material and the professors' teaching style.

My observations from sitting in for a lecture, it was college oriented material taught by college professors to a purely high school audience. I thought it was pretty impressive that these students were able to understand college-level material. I was told by a girl that most have had calculus in the past, but not as rigorous as they've had. In addition, they are calculating the orbits of asteroids in space and they need to know basic calculus and how to derive and integrate functions.

Interviewing some of the students, I got the impression that they are similar to normal Techies (Tech students) and they just love math and science. From two guys in class, they just like the experience to be away for the summer and do something neat and cool. In essence, these kids are whizzes at computers, math, programming, and science. One thing that sets them apart is that they are very social.

One girl said that she likes to learn out of the sake of learning, but sometimes she needs to balance school and free-time. Her free-time comes in the form of playing sports, shopping, and dancing. Last Thursday, all the students went to swing dance and really enjoyed hanging out without their normal groups. There are other kids here who are attending Tech for other reasons.

The professors also enjoy teaching the SSP students. They have high remarks for all their students because they are sharp and intelligent. According to two of the professors, they are on their feet all the time answering students' questions.

Once or twice a week they are off campus on a field trip. They have gone to the Very Large Array, Magdalena Ridge Observatory, White Sands, and a mall trip to Albuquerque. Activities are focused to be interesting for these students.

At first when I began this interview to find out more about the students, I was quite afraid. First, I'm four or five years older than them, they are quite smart, but one teacher assured me, they don't have the wisdom or experience others have.

After talking to a couple of people, they warmed up to talking far more than academics. They showed a fun side to their time at SSP. They actually enjoy it here.

I did a few more interviews and got the facts straightened out, I got the quotes I needed out of work. I ended up getting my quotes while at swing dance. Hahaha. Sometimes it takes a bit of time outside of the office to get stuff done.

Another example was having to take a picture of the kids out there at Etscorn Observatory at 3:30 a.m.! Why on earth would anyone be up that late? In actuality, students were meticulously looking at digital images taken by the telescope to find the supernova they were observing the week before. How crazy.