Advice about SSP (Summer Science Program) in Astrophysics

Nemesis_Artemis
Sun, 10 Apr 2022 15:57:49 +0000

My daughter got into SSP for Astrophysics and is super excited! She also understands it is a big honor.

She is concerned, though, that she will not have an independent research project at the end.

We would love to hear from alums and also get advice on independent research, in general.

She did work (remotely) on a solo project with a professor last summer as part of a more local program and created a poster and presented for the other participants but the professor was very clear at the start that this was a learning experience and she shouldn’t expect it to result in a science fair project or paper.

She does not have a science research program at her high school and many of the local and regional feeder fairs require the high school to support the student entries with chaperones (there is one that does not).

She has two more applications that might come through: Brookhaven National Lab (BNL HSRP) and NYU GSTEM.

I think she should accept SSP and go and have a great time learning and if she wants to do independent research separately before or after she can approach a professor about possibly mentoring her. The difficulty is while she is bright, talented, and motivated, none of us really knows the logistics or anything about working in research independently and publishing it or submitting it to a fair.

Any advice?