Attending a Conference?

On July 3, 2012, in Being a GA/TA, Conferences, by Candace Nast

The Tomorrow’s Professor mailing list publishes excerpts of essays and articles about teaching, many of which will be interesting to GAs and TAs.

The most recent post shares tips for getting the most out of the conferences you attend.

Folks:
The posting below looks at important things students should do at conferences to maximize their time and benefit. It is from Chapter 8, Communicating, in the book, Navigating Graduate School and Beyond: A Career Guide for Graduate Students and a Must Read for Every Advisor, by Sundar A. Christopher. Published under the aegis of the AGU Books Board.[http://www.agu.org/] © Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union, 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20009. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

[…]

I was once asked to come up with five things a student should do at a conference to organize their time. … Here are some guidelines:

  1. Attend talks that will strengthen your specific research topics.
  2. Attend talks that will broaden and enhance your research.
  3. Learn how to have fun at the conference venue.
  4. Interact with peers from other universities and organizations. Networking with your peers pays huge dividends. Peers today, leaders tomorrow!
  5. Finally, set aside some time to talk to potential mentors and some of the icons of the field. Most senior researchers enjoy interacting with graduate students.

There are several reasons for attending a conference. This is an opportunity for the world to see the face behind the name–you! This is why giving good talks is important. Most talks last 12 minutes, yes, 12 minutes with about 3 minutes for questions. Therefore, claim your fame during your talk!

Conferences are also for networking. Networking simply means that you meet people of similar research interests so that you can collaborate with them to further your research and, get this, theirs! Conferences are also great places to meet potential mentors and to gain ideas for deepening or diversifying research.

Here’s something you won’t hear in any book (except this one!). If you do not plan on interacting at a conference, don’t even go. If all you will do is interact with your office mates or your friends from your workplace, you might as well do that over a cup of hot chocolate at a coffee shop in your neighborhood rather than travel all the way to a conference. It’s a waste of time and money. At the end of each conference, you should be able to sit down and list specifically the people with whom you interacted and the follow-on action items as a result of those interactions.

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One Response to Attending a Conference?

  1. […] the wider community in a safe space (which is tough for new scholars). Yes, you can benefit just by attending conferences, but presenting your work in teaching and learning at Windsor-Oakland can help you to forge […]

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