In less than a week, 16 high school students from across Ohio will descend upon the Ohio Supercomputer Center to take part in the 27th Summer Institute. As we enter the final countdown to the camp, which officially starts Sunday, I usually get at least one email from a student asking what to expect. While I can tell students what to pack and let them know the daily schedule, there are some other things incoming students should know before camp starts.
1) Brushing up on basics
We teach students everything they need to know to succeed on their projects. EVERYTHING. So yes, while we go into using matrices in MATLAB, we’re also going to explain the difference between Linux and Unix. That seems pretty basic for many programmers, I know. But programming isn’t just about knowing the answer, it’s about having a good grasp on basics so one knows how and where to look for help when stumped. This dovetails nicely into point number two…
2) Asking for help
This is something many people have problems doing. Asking for help is an important skill in any professional environment. Every day we ask the students to fill out a survey. In addition to the questions you’d expect, such as “what did you like best about today,” we also ask “who helped you today,” and “who did you help?” If one teammate is floundering, the entire project is at risk. It’s better to ask for help early rather than make things more difficult for the team later.
3) Extreme temperature changes
I hate to sound like a stereotypical parent, but dressing in layers is going to make you so much more comfortable at camp. The weather outside is a balmy 80 degrees Fahrenheit. At OSC, the temperature hovers a cool 72 degrees Fahrenheit. One tour to the High Energy Density Physics Scarlet Laser Facility involves wearing coveralls, goggles, and foot booties to prevent contamination of the work site. It gets a little toasty, to say the least. There’s also a tour of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center where the students get to see the ice core samples taken from the arctic. The freezers that contain the ice core samples are cooled to a range between minus 22 to minus 40 degrees. While the students don’t stay in that space for long, even a few seconds is enough to freeze nose hairs!
4) Getting lost is inevitable
I didn’t understand how large OSU was until I started working here.
“It’s in a city,” I thought, “How hard could it be to navigate?”
My pride prevents me from disclosing the exact number of times I’ve gotten lost on main campus, but believe me when I say it’s a sizable number. I will say the amount of time I’ve spent trying to figure out where I am and how to get to specific buildings have gone down since I’ve installed the OSU app on my phone. It has a real time bus locator (especially handy in the summer when buses run less frequently) and a map to help navigate to specific buildings.
5) Dorm life is not glamorous, but it is fun
I am sorry to break the news, but Target has lied. The images of cozy dorms with zebra print chairs and other fun prints decorating the room are all an elaborate fiction created to sell a product. While the dorms we use have been very recently renovated, dorm life takes some adjustment. However, in contrast to the prison-like cinderblock walls and communal showers, dorm life is extremely free. Evening activities are loosely planned, but can be changed as needed. A group wants to go to the RPAC to work out or play basketball? No problem. Have a hankering to play Frisbee on the Oval? No sweat. Found some new friends at camp you want to challenge in Overwatch? That’s a possibility. As long as students adhere to the buddy system and stay within campus, the world is their oyster.
As final preparations for camp are underway, I hope everyone is as excited (and a little bit nervous) as I am. While I enjoy working with the camp, my favorite aspect is working with the students, and all the interesting things I learn from them. On Sunday, I get to meet a new batch of students, and start learning more new and crazy things from them. Here’s to another great year!
