<p>thank goodness you posted again astrowanna
I have a question for you. On the checklist they sent us, it says that we should bring identification (i.e. driver's license). I was wondering what we used this identification for, because I don't have a driver's license, and all I can bring is my school ID and my passport.
Thanks for all the help!</p>
<p>uh...i just turned 16 and i havent gotten a drivers licence yet. and i wasnt planning to either for at least a year. </p>
<p>is this a problem? do we absolutely NEED a drivers licence? would a crappy school id work perhaps?</p>
<p>yeah, i doubt we would need a formal id, but I was just wondering why they asked us to bring one...</p>
<p>Hmm. The only thing I can remember is that they took us on trips to White Sands and other military bases in the area for which we may have needed IDs. You might also need it to get a library card. I think it's mostly a precaution, though. A passport or school ID would definitely be enough.</p>
<p>I, honestly, don't remember what ID I took (since I didn't and still don't have my driver's license) so it can't have been that big of a deal. Just take whatever you have and that should be enough. If not, your parents can always mail you extra stuff.</p>
<p>thanks a ton astrowanna, i guess my school ID will be good enough</p>
<p>astrowanna, I have a question about the computers. Are we allowed to install camera software onto it and load pictures? I am going to buy a digital camera and I want to know whether or not to bring extra memory. Also, do they have CD burners? It would be a hassel to upload all of them onto gmail. Hehe. Thanks for all the help.</p>
<p>The computers at Soccoro had fairly harsh restrictions on them. I think the SSP staff are the only people allowed to install stuff, but you may be able to finagle a TA into letting you use his/her connection. It was a similar issue with CD burning. I seem to recall a fellow SSPer wandering over to the engineering building to see if he could get someone over there to burn his IDL code onto a CD. I think it is possible, but extremely difficult. They may have made changes this year. It may also be different at Ojai. I would definitely suggest bringing extra memory, though.</p>
<p>Thank you once again. You have been a boon to our SSP endeavors. Hope you have fun at RSI!</p>
<p>It has been my pleasure helping a whole new generation of SSPers on their way! No thanks required. Good luck, guys.</p>
<p>5 final exams, 1 SAT away from SSP for me!</p>
<p>Hey everyone, I too went to SSP at socorro last year and am able to offer another opinion/answer questions too if you have anything you want to know. . . . </p>
<p>(ahoy there "astrowanna", case you didnt know this is matt, I juss got jealous of letting you have all the fun ;) )</p>
<p>Hey, Matt! I should have recognized the ketchup reference. ;)
Yes, everyone ask Matt questions--especially about how to fall asleep in random places whenever necessary and/or how to not sleep at all. He has it down to a fine art (and a very useful one for SSP).</p>
<p>That's useful information, the bit about the digital camera. :-) I go through pictures REALLY fast, so I'll have to bring extra memory for my camera.</p>
<p>A random question: (to Matt or astrowanna) --- How much sleep do you get on average? I'm used to not sleeping a whole lot during school (a combination of procrastination and a lot of homework)...is there just one or two nights a week you don't sleep, in order to do observations? Is it more? Do you stay up frequently to work on problems?</p>
<p>How heavy is the workload at SSP? From the guide it sounds like the social and academic aspects are very well balanced. Do you go very far into calculus (i.e. beyond multivariate)? Very far into physics? Do you remember how many problems you had each night?</p>
<p>Also... do students get to go to the grocery store sometimes (at least weekly)? I think I heard something about that somewhere.</p>
<p>Thanks... Sorry about the onslaught of questions :-)</p>
<p>I can't wait!!</p>
<p><em>is annoyed by his inability to find a "quote" button but meh</em></p>
<p>yay! I get to answer questions! lol. . . . yeah the digital camera thing can be muy problematic, but you can buy disposables if you need to anywhere. . . .i broke my digital like a third of the way through :(, but i still found disposables everywhere, and thoguh they were expensiver, i still have pictures :). . . . .</p>
<p>sleep <em>is nostalgiac</em> I remember that old friend. . . . .well you really can sleep as much or as little as you want. . . .for my own ease I think ill use names of people so that way "astrowanna" can easierly comprehend my ramblings; anyways, like there were a couple of guys (thinking of erik and bambi) who totally were not into the whole insomniac thing; they went to bed like every day at like 10 or 11 and were really energetic the next morning up for breakfast and disturbingly chipper;) on the other end of the spectrum, as "astrowanna" (can i please use your first name or do you have a prob wiht that, if so its not too big of a deal juss a bit disconcerting to call you "astrowanna") implied, I didnt sleep much at all at night. . . .I wandered around until proly 2 or 3 each night, and a group of us even began playing "midnight frisbee" (ultimate frisbee at midnight (bring a frisbee! (glow in the dark if possible!)), which can be rather dangerous if you arent careful) and then hanging out playing poker and the like until much later. . . . .course then during the lecture the next day whenever the teacher started rambling i "zoned out" until he got back to something more on topic and the person next to me alerted me. . . . </p>
<p>the workload is pretty much however heavy you make it. . . . like some people did about one prob a night so that our assignment (usually like 5 or so probs for a week or so from each class(may not sound like a lot, but it can be tough (still remember a prob bout a star rising in ancient egypt juss cause it was os awesome when it was like "oooooo, now i get it!" lol)) was done on the day it was due (like josh or marshall), and they didnt seem to be working much at all, but on the other side people like me waited until a day or so before and worked like hell for a bit. . . .</p>
<p>observations are another thign that you can do however you want. . . . though it is kinda assigned. . . . in any case, like there are three shifts, on from 11-1, one from 1-3, and one from 3-5 (I was 3-5 (SSP late shift woot!)), so if you end up early your sleep wont be too messed up, and if you ahve the late one, if you want you could go to bed before and wake up at 3, but the 1-3 one could be touhg if you like sleep. . . . .but like i said, you dont HAVE to do allnightrs less you want to. . . . frequency of observations is largely dependent on how awesome of a telescope operator you are and how lucky you are. . . . . </p>
<p>you dont go too far into any subject; I hadnt taken physics or calc of any kind when i got accepted (if you want to know like the whole "I was a sophomore then" thing, ill tell it, but i guess technically i wouldnt be considered a sophomore. . . . lol its complicated like i said), but I still kept up with help form the other kids, and when i did get to physics/calc a whole mess of it was juss review. . . .</p>
<p>smith's? was that the name of the grocery store? <em>is nostalgiac</em>. . . . anyways, yeah there is an expedition to the store about twice a week or so. . . .and a trip to the movies/dowtown on sat/sun. . . . . .</p>
<p><em>is nostalgiac</em> lol I totally am loving answering these quesiotns incoherently lol, so feel free to ask more, and ill make incoherent ramblings like this, then "astrowanna" will give intelligible answers ;)</p>
<p>(My aim is ketchupgenius (I know, Im so humble ;) )case any of you want to talk to me, and im on almost all the time, though i might have an away message up. . . . juss tell me youre a future ssper and i can not only answer any questions you have but point you to other old sspers on if you want to talk to some)</p>
<p>I heart answering youre questions lol specially when theyre in onslaught form ;)</p>
<p>Hey future SSPers. I'm Josh D. and I'm a Socorro 2004 alum. Geeta posted on our Yahoo group that we should come here and answer questions, so, since I have nothing better to do this morning, I'm here. I just skimmed through the thread and I'll answer some lingering questions:</p>
<p>The reason why SSP was moved to Happy Valley in Ojai was because, in 1999, SSP had sort of fallen on hard times. It had all but lost its funding that was so easy to get when the space race meant something to people. Richard Bowdon has really organized the campaign for fundraising to move SSP, then to advertise and grow it to the second campus (Socorro--by no means worse than the first). I honestly don't see why SSP couldn't grow again in the future, but I don't think they have any explicit plans to do so.</p>
<p>SSP is not out to take your money. It's non-for-profit, which explains why SSP's website is summerscience.org and not summerscience.com. In actuality, donations allow the program to much cheaper than it would actually cost. So be thankful for the amazing amount of "tangibles" you do get for the cost. Anyways, it's the intangibles that you're going to SSP for.</p>
<p>About selectivity and prestige: don't worry. Even with 300 applicants, SSP is very self-selecting. Even if programs like RSI are more prestigious, in the end that doesn't matter. We have a very, very impressive list of colleges right now, to say nothing of acceptances. Two Harvards, two Princetons, two Stanfords, a Yale, a Columbia, two Pamonas...and the list goes on. More pertinently, one girl, Nicole (recently featured in her local newspaper here: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-te.md.clarke30may30,1,4176154.story?ctrack=1&cset=true%5B/url%5D">http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bal-te.md.clarke30may30,1,4176154.story?ctrack=1&cset=true</a> ) was accepted to RSI and turned it down to go to SSP. It doesn't matter where you go, or even what you do exactly, but how well you can articulate how those experiences affected you and made you a better human being.</p>
<p>On a lighter note: the food. Here's my advice: if you like cereal, don't eat any until you get to SSP. Then you'll be happy with their food. There's always lots of different cereals--almost always not stale--and plenty of milk. There's always a salad bar, always ice cream, and usually there's SOMETHING on the hot bar that you can eat. Apparently, in 2003, NMT was voted as having the worst campus food in the country, and supposedly our year the food had improved dramatically. So, for your sakes, I hope it's improved dramatically once again.</p>
<p>Anyways, if you have any questions, feel free to ask away!</p>
<p>whats up ketchup boy and grendel, thanks a lot for coming over and talking to us about ssp
grendel, im simultaneously laughing and shuddering at your description of the food. Why is it so bad? What food is usually on the hot bar? Is it bad because its full of inedible material (like fat)? Or does it just taste bad (not enough salt or too much salt)?</p>
<p>ummm. . . .yes? Its just horribly greasy and crazy feeling and strange tasting. . . . .the hot bar for lunch is usually: fries, some sort of coagulated meat thing (burger, meat loaf, hot dog, chicken nuggets), and like a rice/vegie like thing. . . .. I think. . . .dinner is uhh. . . .some kind of potato, some kind of meat, a rice/vegie thing, and. . . . .something else but i dont remember what. . . .breakfast was like eggs and bacon and hash browns and stuff but the waffles were far better than anythign else (make your own with their batter so theyre fresh/crsipy) but i woefully only ever was at breakfast bout 3 times. . . . . fyi we all went to socorro so we dont know about ojais food, but it must be at least somewhat better. . . . .</p>
<p>Occasionally, it was good. The deserts, the salads, the cereal, etc. were usually just fine. The hot bar, as you may have guessed, was always hit or miss. In the morning, they did pretty well: bacon, eggs, sausages...typical continental breakfast food. Lunch and dinner had great variety, but not always a great success. I don't imagine that the materials were particuarly subpar--I still live--but they certianly weren't gormet. They definately try to offer a variety, so there are usually options. And they try very hard, so appreciate what it is and thank the staff accordingly.</p>
<p>I honestly wouldn't worry about the food. You'll remember it as being fun and campy, like a bad 80's movie.</p>
<p>Oh, the mexican food they made was quite good.</p>
<p>And dont laugh too hard at their spellings of things like quiche and the like. . . lol</p>
<p>LOL. Oh yes. Party. I remember how they spelled quiche. Wow.
Yeah, Matt, I totally don't mind if you use my first name (Geeta Geeta Geeta Geeta, there). I think it's just harder to remember than astrowanna so people just use that. Welcome, Josh! Awesome--SSP Soccoro is the shiznit. </p>
<p>Anyway, on to the pressing questions. Matt answered most of them with surprising coherence ( ;) j/k Matt, I know you're a genius). </p>
<p>On the sleep issue, I probably represent the average sleep schedule. On nights when I wasn't observing: in bed between 11 and 12. Woke up around 8:00, went to breakfast and then to class at 9am (I never fell asleep in class, so there--although I seriously considered it several times). I was in the 11-1 observation slot, so on those nights I would usually just stay up until we got back around 2am. Sleep won't be that big of a deal, since you usually have from when class ends at 3p to finish all your work. That leaves plenty of time for partying without sleep depravation, although partying WITH sleep depravation was also a widely accepted practice (see MATT).</p>
<p>On the coursework: A lot of the astronomy was pretty hardcore. I had dabbled in a bit of spherical trig before hand, which helped. But trust me, whatever they give you, you can figure it out. They wouldn't give it to you otherwise. SSP strongly emphasizes team effort, so I would usually end up working out problems in groups of 3 or 4 people, which was immensely helpful. The TAs live in dorm with you and everyone is accessible, so you can get help from them too. I remember for one of the really awful--I mean...challenging-- problems a bunch of us went (around 8 o'clock pm) down to the room where the TAs and the profs usually are when we got stuck on a problem. We were the first people there, but throughout the 2 hours that it took us to figure out that problem the ENTIRE population of SSP was crammed into that room. It was incredible. There was just this great essence of excitement as different clumps kept shouting "I got it!" It was really fulfilling. So the bottom line is, while there's a fair deal of work, there are plenty of resources. I really really really suggest working in groups, though.
The calculus is pretty basic, essentially just basic differentiation and integration. The physics is around or a bit below the level of AP Physics BC (calculus based), although we did very little electrcity and magnetics. Do any of the SSP Soccorans happen to know who the physics teacher is going to be this year?</p>
<p>So, yeah. There's the scoop. Keep the questions coming. My AOL IM is trepidantturtle, but I'm very rarely on. If you see me, though, feel free to ask questions (I'm actually just trying to keep up with Matt ;) ). </p>
<p>Btw, where are all the '04 Ojai SSPers? You Cali people probably want tips too.</p>