Posted on behalf of Materials Girl
I am trying something new this quarter – skipping class! But, not skipping class because I want to sleep in; even if I did do something so atrocious, it hardly would be beneficial to advertise on this blog. 😉
Instead, I am leaving the classroom to attend a conference for the first time! A friend has secured a [tiny] bit of funding to aid any undergrads attending the MRS spring meeting. Speaking of which, is it really necessary to charge students $160 to merely get through the door? It probably explains why only four of us are going (from the undergraduate Materials Science & Engineering department). Grad students at least tend to get funded by their advisors…
Given our very limited budgets, I’m not sure what the available scope of activities will be. However, I am nonetheless excited – especially after hearing of all the wondrous things from ACS! Now if only Nature Chemistry were around so I could nab an awesome shirt.
What types of happenings do you expect and seek out from conferences?
[Editor’s note: the editorial in issue 2 of Nature Chemistry will be about scientific conferences…]
It’s all about talking to people. Listening to lectures and talks is good to a certain extent (but I’m sure you get enough of that in class) – but conferences are where you can meet the people doing the science you’re learning about.
The poster sessions might be a good place to start: getting people to talk through their work at those is always a good way to find out what really happened, rather than what their supervisor THINKS happened!