The UOAO actively participates in the "practical training and career experience" program, which is an option for many undergraduate students in Greek Universities to obtain their degree.

Typically a couple of students every year carry out short scientific projects of a few months duration, supervised by researchers of the Institute and leading towards a diploma thesis.

In addition, high school students have the opportunity to follow a training program, in the frame of educational activities at their host shools. Training programs include astronomical observations, data reduction and astronomical report editing.

Such internships provide a unique opportunity to the students to experience for the first time how research is performed e.g. searching the literature, performing data analysis and/or software development and preparing scientific reports.

The poster below is the result of a practical training of the high school student Ioanna Kourkoulou, who visited UOAO in 2012-2013 and performed astronomical observations and data reduction in the frame of a school project. These observations unvealed the physical and geometrical properties of the contact binary system and helped in understanding the nature of the contact system evolution. The results of this research were announced with a poster presentation in Hel.A.S. conference in 2013. Ioanna Kourkoulou studied Physics at Princeton University (USA).