Georgia College and State University Astrophysics: Last-Minute Grind
T-3 days until SSP comes to an end, which can only mean one thing: it’s time to lock in. The classroom opened an hour earlier than usual this morning, so I forced my groggy self to pick up a breakfast bagel at 8 a.m. sharp and get to work. We have a poster presentation and paper due tomorrow, so there was no time to waste.
The first part of the morning work session was spent finishing our poster for tomorrow. Most of it was minor edits, thankfully, like formatting and aesthetics and keeping the content professional yet easy to comprehend. Now that we had our orbit determination code working (after FIFTEEN AND A HALF HOURS of trying to get it running 😭), my group and I worked our results onto the poster as well. Clicking the “submit” button brought a sense of great relief—but we weren’t done yet.
Despite having our results generated, there would always be some slight uncertainty that needs to be accounted for, so my group got started on our uncertainty determination code: the Monte Carlo method.
“This part is short,” we thought, “we’ll be done in no time. Right?”
Wrong.
One of the teams who had written their code already was working on completing the simulation with 100,000 iterations. They had been running their program for half an hour, and it still wasn’t finished.
So … yeah. We got to work. Quickly.
While myself and Dara, my teammate, were writing our paper’s abstract and results sections, our other teammate, Shirley, set our coding our Monte Carlo simulation. And … that’s how the morning went. Papers, code, and thousands of iterations to make our data look as uniform as possible.
Lunchtime!
On our first day eating somewhere other than cafeteria food, my friends and I had sat outside in the sun and had a potluck with our microwaveable Indian food. Now, on our last day before packing up our food, we did the same. Here’s a picture of (from left to right), myself, Aditi, Nayana, Sofello, and Ashna with our Madras Lentils and Dal Fry (and other snacks).
After lunch was our final Belonging Series lecture, this one about networking, letters of recommendation, and how to stay connected with SSP after the program ends. Enjoy this meme from the slides.
The senior faculty had a panel afterward during which we could ask them any questions we had. As everyone was asking their questions, I realized that we had done the same thing on college and career day—at the halfway point of the program. I didn’t realize how long it had been since then … and how little time we had before we would be saying goodbye to these amazing instructors.
( … This is so sad. Alexa, play “Where’d All the Time Go.”)
Aaaaand back to work time. My group made some progress on Monte Carlo, and we started writing that into our final report. Things were going swimmingly! (For the most part. It was still very stressful, but hey, that’s how it be sometimes.)
Then we had a break! With the talent show tomorrow, Ashna and I practiced our act: a singing and piano duet to City of Stars from La La Land. Our friend Sophia tagged along as well. One of our last practices in this room … I’m gonna miss this.
Then came dinner. I absolutely loved my table—our conversations ranged from college and career readiness to unhinged Shakespeare plays and everything in between.
After dinner, our friend group spent some time outside chatting. The down time after dinner is something I always look forward to—a moment during which we don’t have to rack our brains doing complex problem-solving and instead can just … enjoy each other’s company.
At around 7:00, some of the students do a workout challenge called Sally Up, Sally Down. Today, I joined them.
Ouch. I could barely walk down stairs afterward.
Then was the SSP Speak Your Mind Ice Bucket Challenge … and things took a twist. TA Mark nominated our very own site director, Ms. Patel.
And then … more work time! Yay! (😭😭😭) With our Monte Carlo simulation done, all we needed to do was make the paper the best we could write. We got down to business to defeat the Huns—er, the workload. It was tedious and tiring, but undoubtedly lots of fun. And we were one step closer to submitting our final report! Some teams had just submitted theirs, so here’s a picture of them frolicking in joy and relief and triumph.
And that’s it! We had some time to unwind afterward, so I called home. I’m excited to see my family again (and get some good sleep), but I’m going to miss everyone so much. I’ve made friends here that I will keep for the rest of my life, and all the fascinating things I’ve learned—both in lectures and outside of class—will stick with me as well.
For now, I’m just going to make the most of these last few days.
From Astrophysics at GCSU: Godspeed!
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Aanshi S.
Hey y’all! My name is Aanshi, an aspiring aerospace engineer + astronaut from Broomfield, Colorado. Apart from my passion for astronomy, I enjoy reading, writing, hiking, playing tennis, playing piano, and spending time with my friends and family.
