Conferences are fabulous: a concentration of ideas and discoveries and inspiration and the very people who are creating your field. Don’t treat a conference like a textbook. This is the time to put yourself out there and connect with the people-science nexus – human to human.
Deciding to go
• Ask your advisor for the names of conferences you should consider.
• Ideally submit an abstract and present. (This requires planning 6 months to a year ahead).
• If a the travel cost/burden is low, just go.
• Seek funds from your advisor, department, or university. Funds are often reserved for presenters, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Before the conference
• Rest up. Really.
• Find out who is going from inside your network. Especially look for buddies (for comfort) and an advisor or instructor (for introducing you to others).
• Research the program. You may be downloading an app or searching a pdf, but take full advantage of the technology to search keywords of your interests and the authors that you are following.
• Realize that a conference program is a concentrated assembly of the people who are currently active in a field. Pay attention to the authors who are coming up again and again. Read the abstracts as a preview of work that may be published in the near future.
• Reach out to the people doing the work that inspires you. Consult with your advisor to partner in this. But don’t be afraid to cold-email anyone with an invite for coffee or meeting during a break. Enthusiasm about someone’s work, no matter their rank, can really open doors. (See the blog post on informational interviews for tips here).
• Mark up your calendar with the sessions you want to attend (making sure to include room/location information).
• Make plans for dinners with others. Ask your buddies/advisor what their plans are. Invite someone just outside your inner circle and be open to being included in a bigger group. Avoid having a dinner that just includes only your close buddies who are all graduate students, because conference dinners are a super-important avenue for meeting new colleagues.
• If there are “fun” events at your conference (a run, museum trip, outing, dinner, etc), sign up, especially if you don’t have other plans to connect over dinners etc.
During the conference
• Up and at em – attend events early to late.
• Nudge yourself out of a mindset that you are a lowly student or an outsider. You have been admitted to a doctoral program and you have a lot to give to this field. You will be sought after for your ability to work hard and bring new perspective. Where you are right now is just fine. Hold your head high and say hello and shake some hands.
• If you don’t yet have dinner plans, now is the time to say hello to those that you are meeting and ask if they have dinner plans. Sometimes a closed group may be meeting with a specific purpose, so don’t be offended if you encounter this. More frequently you will encounter people that are open to folding you into a group, because they understand what it is like to be new to a field.
• At oral presentations – head up front at the end and speak with a presenter that interests you. Introduce yourself and engage about the content, such as saying what you appreciated, or asking a follow-up question.
• At poster presentations – ask the presenter to explain the poster to you. Introduce yourself.
• You may have an opportunity to speak with someone that you don’t normally have an opportunity to speak with about the science: an expert, potential collaborator, etc, at a time that is during a presentation you planned to go to. Opt for the chat and skip the presentation, or go late.
After the conference
• Follow up on any leads you had about interesting papers or methods. Get organized by fleshing out your notes and bringing the citations into your library.
• Spend a few minutes simply writing. Write down new ideas, new approaches, or personal reflections on how this recent immersion will help you make the world a better place.
• Send emails to the people you met, thanking them.