What is code/astro workshop?

Code/Astro official website

It is a very practical and hands-on astronomy software development workshop, where participants go through developing a software package and putting on the github platform throughout a week. Students work in groups, remotely or in person, and the week is also full of various tutorials and informative / career sessions relevant to the project and the working environment of the field. This is my simplified summary, the workshop is really rich and I encourage you to explore its webpage to learn more, and even check out some of the material that is hosted online from the past sessions.

Five positive things that this workshop experience brought into my career and life journey

As I try to work on this blog to record things about my career in astronomy, both for my inspiration and for encouragement and information for others, I was puzzled what to write about regarding code/astro, because there is so much to write. I attended this workshop as a participant several years ago. And this time, I applied to do TAship, in a remote manner, from Finland. It has been a long time since I had done teaching and I think never in a remote fashion. So, since longer posts will probably never be read, I try to highlight five points, which inspired me from this expeirence.

Thing 1.

Incredible opportunity in both sharing coding knowledge and increasing my coding knowledge

Goding is important in astronomy, and in all science careers I dare say. It is my goal to continuously improve in this area. I was excited about this workshop, but I did have to silence my inner criticism that somehow I should not apply for this position, so if you are ever feeling that way, it is good to question your negativity and in any case, if you qualify for something, apply despite fears. I did that. I am glad that I conquered the fears and gave myself a chance. In fact, this experience came as a ray of hope in my 1+ year of unemployment in astronomy research field. So, personally it was also a bit of a confidence booster, a bit of an opportunity to do what I loved as a career, to engage with people, to engage with students around the world on topics of my interest – incredible. Especially that it was remote. All the way from Helsinki.

The bottom line of this point is that this opportunity gave me a way to share my knowledge of coding, to walk through coding challenges and any other curves of learning and coding up a software package, learning to use platforms, with students, and give my own personal input as well by giving a positive and encouraging feedback. I think it is important, because experts sometimes forget what it is to learn something, that people came from different backgrounds and have different types of learning curves, or different life situations when taking a workshop/class/research project, so it is nice not to ridicule people if they ask a question, but show patience and kindness and actually encourage asking questions. Especially online, often programming spaces are negative, especially to newbies, so I was happy to contribute positivity into that field. 

But, as often people say, that if you want to really learn something, teach it, that what happened to me as well. I myself increased my experience and my knowledge of software development, by serving that workshop as a remote TA. As many questions come up, as I hear again the workshop sessions, I learn of best practices from others – my students, other TAs, the workshop leads, and invited speakers, etc. The field itself changes continuously, now with the AI era, so I enjoyed also learning and stretching my brain as well.

Thing 2.

Absolute joy to work in a positive environment.

As I am a hard worker and no-nonsense/task-oriented person, I don’t like office politics and drama, power games and bullying, I don’t know how to play those games. I am a simple person. Unfortunately, in academia, often places and spaces can be really deficient in how the workplace atmosphere is setup. So I particularly appreciated that diversity was embraced, kindness was the rule, that people collaborated with each other. There was openness, respect, even appreciation in this atmosphere, which I felt as a remote TA, and it was a nice experience, which I enjoyed because it’s not always given in my career (or maybe in any career).

It is amazing to feel appreciated when you go to work and interact with people. It is  amazing when people can ask questions in a science workshop openly. It is amazing when the environment is positive, encouraging, accepting, and open, and when people are hard-working and do not focus on drama but focus on solutions, how much you can accomplish, how productive the team can be, how effective the time is used.

Thing 3.

Getting to know people from all around the world in astronomy.

One thing that I did not think about but which flooded my days as a TA in code/astro was just meeting new people, researchers from around the world. Especially because I was a remote TA. I got to juggle time zones and get in touch with people from places I have never known anyone from before. I enjoyed learning about different universities, hearing people’s introductions and stories, learning how they think and what they are building in their career at that moment. I felt like I was getting on internet for the first time, going into chat rooms and connecting with countries and places around the world – basically, I felt quite young and the interactions were engaging and interesting.

Thing 4. 

Getting the flavor of what it takes to organize a workshop.

In a way, this was also a lesson in leadership in organization. I got the behind-the-scenes peak at how the workshop was organized, how the content was curated, how the sessions were prepared. We had several meetings and discussions as TAs (there were many of us 😀 ) and I enjoyed learning from other TAs and from the workshop organizers how to structure, what problems were arising and how these problems were solved, how the communications were setup, and more. It is a valuable experience and also gave me a deeper appreciation of the work and effort that is input into such a workshop as this.

Thing 5.

Expanding horizons.

This is by no means the last good point about the code/astro workshop. However, I want to highlight that this workshop, even for a seasoned professional like me with tons of teaching and working experience, was a way to expand my horizons. Especially, managing and communicating remotely with participants and everyone actually was something new for me, as a TA. My previous teaching experiences were all in person. 
Furthermore, I got to learn about resources and tips which I did not know both from the participants and from the TAs. I got to collaborate with other TAs from various institutions, tap into the wisdom of the lead TA, and learn from Sarah and Jason daily during the workshop and during the training. 

I also learned more about myself, about my capabilities, my courage. As a mother of young children, I also got to hone in my skills of managing family responsibilities alongside this work experience. I connected with astronomers around the world, with young minds, with creative ideas, interesting people, and much more.

This is not just a line on my CV to show that I have some coding skills, but a window to more opportunities, even a window to areas where I actually would like to get more coding experience. I have appreciation of the humility and work that is put into by the organizers into this workshop, to create a productive and welcoming environment to learn the invaluable skills in software development, the much needed skills in many sciences, but very important as we continue to explore the space around us, the ginormous universe outside of our planet Earth.

In particular, because at the time I did not have a research grant/position (other than the unpaid Visiting Scientist at FINCA), I enjoyed being part of this world of astronomy research, where I was not put down as an irrelevant person, but was included as a valuable team member. This short experience gave a great boost to my soul to dream again more fully about my career aspirations of studying galaxies. 

So super grateful for this experience and I hope that my work also was helpful to the participants this year. 

Stay fired up!

– Your astronomer and writer who now moved from Helsinki now to Rome in career pursuit.