Saturday, June 18, 2016

Week one, CHECK!

After a whirlwind week, our TAURUS cohort is enjoying their weekend unwind... the first week was packed full of activities to not only orient them to their new projects, but also to build an strong sense of community and build the toolbox they'll need for the rest of their summer stay in Austin.


Essential to any first-hand astronomy research experience is programming and fluency with Unix.  So that's what we focused on in our seminar series during this first week.  Some of excellent graduate student Unix ninjas Jeremy Ritter and Jessica Luna came to the rescue to introduce students to Unix and text editors (a bit more advanced than the familiar vi and emacs, thankfully that battle was avoided) and IDL blackbelt Intae Jung and Python guru Emma Yu gave them the run down on programming basics.  It was great to see some presence from UT-based astronomy researchers as well!

Have no fear though, it wasn't all work!  Our TAURUS scholars enjoyed a reception in the grand hall of the UT Tower to welcome them to campus, along with other summer researchers in other programs.  Many got the opportunity to meet students from all over the country, and world!  Enjoy the weekend TAURUS! You deserved it.

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