STARs Forum
1st STARs Summit Summary
Voices of our STARs for the first STARs summit
"I cannot tell you how impressed I was by all that is going on in Engineering at WVU."
" I look forward to continuing our relationship as the years progress and to sending you many talented students for your programs. I will share the excitement and passion for learning that I experienced today from the professors and students. Thank you again for this wonderful opportunity."
" It was great that my students were able to make connections with some of the speakers. Our students are trying to determine which field of study they will enter upon graduation from high school. The speakers gave them many options and ideas from which to choose."
"I very much loved the content of the STARS Workshop. I am glad that teachers from around the state had interest in the workshop as well. Having teachers involved is a great promoter for students to gain insight on colleges that they might be interested in attending."
"All of my students and teachers from my school were very impressed with the workshop on Saturday, as was I. All the teachers expressed interest in coming back if you had a follow up!!!!!!"
"I absolutely loved the workshop as did the other 2 teachers from my school. We all agreed the professors’ talks were very informative, interesting and enlightening. We very much enjoyed grading the posters and getting to talk to the grad students."
"Congratulations for putting on such a successful event and thank you again for inviting us to participate with you! We hope to see you all again sometime soon."
"We really thought the STARS research summit was very informative. It definitely opened my eyes to all of the opportunities my students who love math can pursue."
"The summit was very informative about what kinds of research my students could do if they attended WVU, I think that would assist in their decisions to choose your university in the future."
"I really enjoyed it and am happy that the students and high school teachers had a great time as well!"
"Everything was so organized and professional. I came back and told my students how so many of the presenters used scientific notation in their presentations, because I had just taught them that and they were wondering when they may ever use it in life. It was exciting to see people using math in fantastic ways at such a high level of thinking."
"The excitement and the passion that the faculty have here for what they are doing and the opportunity they are providing for students is amazing. But I will definitely be spreading the word about everything that is going on here. I know that several of my APComp Sci students are planning on entering Engineering next year as they matriculate to university and I will now be able to give them some insight into all of the opportunities available to them. The important work being done in renewable power, transportation, 3D printing applications, medical applications, photonics, quantum computing, and on and on! The research and lab facilities that were shown with the advanced equipment are mind blowing.Students have the opportunity to work with cutting edge equipment to follow their questions as far as they can."
"You have provided me with a wealth of knowledge of the much more positive things that are going on. The professors were so passionate and so excited about what they are doing."
"I felt saddened that they had to speak so fast to try and make their presentations go more quickly. I could have listened to each one for a much longer time and have pages of notes and comments and could have asked many questions."
"My students really enjoyed themselves. At first I thought some of the topics presented might be over my students' heads, but they told me they enjoyed listening to the presenters and learning about the projects on which they were working."
"It is my opinion that this event will grow. I hope that regional high schools, even from nearby Pennsylvania, will also participate."
"My only suggestion would be to make it possible for the students to attend the lab tour. They were looking forward to it, but they understood that time had just got away from us."
"How wonderful it is to showcase great innovations coming from our colleges and universities from our state of West Virginia."
"I have always been a great advocate for students to continue their education by attending an in-state university. This workshop just reinforced my belief that our young students can have an impact on the world and achieve goals that on farther then they might even imagine."
"The only suggestion would be is to have the Poster competition in a bigger area so everyone could have more room to view the poster displays and talk to the students about their research projects."
"Thank you for the excellent meeting. I feel much more aware of WVU's engineering and physics research, while recognizing that only a think slice could be covered in one day."
"I know it is not news to you, however keeping the 15 minute slots while including more breaks so that the schedule can get back in sync can make sense. Some would say to use the breaks for discussion, but really they are just to catch up the schedule."
"The seating was great, clustering people was well done."
"My students and their parents said it was definitely a worthwhile event. Kudos to you for writing that grant and putting the workshop together."
"One of my students that attended, a junior, is planning on coming to WVU and majoring in MAE. He and his parents were very appreciative of the workshop and the chance to hear the professors speak."
"It was obvious a lot of work and planning went into the workshop and made us teachers, the students, and parents feel very appreciated. All three of us teachers would definitely return if you had a follow up in 6 months."
"Thank you so much for inviting me, and the students to the WV-STARs event. It was amazing! We had such a good time, meeting with you and so many wonderful teachers and WVU faculty, revisiting with many former students and hopefully contributing to the meeting."
"The only suggestion I can make is that there be more! Maybe a 2-day event? This way we can all talk more!"
"You mentioned there might be a follow up for it. Please keep me on the list if you are able to schedule the tour in the future."
"The only suggestion I have is to maybe have different rooms and rotate groups. That way not so many people would be judging the projects at once and the audience would get to stretch and walk between sessions."
"Science Summit - went very good and awesome presentations. Being a physics teacher, I really enjoyed, especially with the students display/presentations."
"I have one suggestion about the poster prize (next time all poster With numbers on it) so that it will be easy to judge/and to also avoid errors in giving the scores. I had difficult while giving scores to the students poster."
"On the whole the science summit was very useful/fantastic conference."
"As a high school teacher, it would be interesting if there was a way to integrate the information into our learning environments. The equipment you use is very amazing but also very expensive and outside the range of what I could afford to keep students engaged."
"I was so impressed with the STARS Summit! I learned so much in such a short time."
"A couple things I would suggest is to either extend the end time of the day, keep the presenters on a timer, or cut out a few presentations. The reason being is that it would've been nice to have a few small 5 or 10 minute breaks to get up and move. Also, the presentations at the end of the day in one room was very overwhelming. If they could have a bigger room or if there were fewer posters to show, that would be more feasible. A rubric to properly judge the posters would've been very helpful too."
"Overall it was an awesome day and I came back and told several people about it. If you do this again, I will definitely share the word with my coworkers to attend."
"My suggestion is that the poster presentation be divided into 2 rooms and that rubrics be given to judges so that the scores are more consistent."
"If I could suggest something, it would be to ensure the future gets to see the facility and programs."
"In the future, I am considering bring some of my robotics students; however, it would only be lucrative if they get to see the facility. Depending on the outcome of our robotics season and state endeavor, I could possibly convince them to do a short presentation."
"The event was a great success, and thank you for inviting me to be a part of it."
"The workshop is a great fun. The result is really impressive. So we can certainly look forward to the next time."
"Overall, it was a very good event. I’d be happy to continue participation."
"I have to thank you for including me in such a well organized event! It was a lot of fun :-)"