Interview with Carolyn Ash - Caltech Oral Histories

Ash–25
there, in the room, so when they come in, they get their supper and they sit down. And as soon
as everybody has gotten food and sat down, then we start the program.
COHEN: OK. Trial and error. [Laughter]
ASH: Right. But you know, so many students have come back and said, “This was so valuable.
I learned this, and I learned that, and I’ve acted on it,” in some way. So it’s actually become a
very important part of what we do.
COHEN: It seems to me I’ve gone to a couple of those.
ASH: Fred had started—and we have continued—these research seminars. We do a series every
Wednesday at noon on the campus, and then as SURF began to expand at JPL, we started a
series up there on Fridays at noon. It’s hard for the JPL students to get down here and get back
again during the day, so we thought they should have the same opportunity to enrich their
research experiences by seeing what other people are doing.
COHEN: It also puts them in contact with one another, I would think.
ASH: It does.
COHEN: A lot of these kids must be loners.
ASH: That’s true. We have done some of what we call round-table discussions. We bring
somebody in—sometimes an alum, sometimes somebody from business, sometimes an
entrepreneur, and so on—for a small gathering. Of course, always at lunch or at a meal.
[Laughter]
COHEN: Feed them, feed them, feed them. [Laughter]
ASH: I know. We just go from meal to meal. That’s what undergraduate research is, you just go
from meal to meal.
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