As Clemson’s Biological Sciences Annual Student Symposium is soon approaching, I’ve decided to blog a bit about my experiences at other symposiums and conferences. I’ll recount some of the things that I’ve learned from these experiences as a way to prepare for this upcoming conference! So here we go with a recounting of my most recent conference experience! Last August, I had the great opportunity to go to Baltimore and attend the centennial meeting of the Ecological Society of America. While I was there, I was overwhelmed, intrigued, and inspired all at the same time. The conference lasted five days, and each was jam-packed with lectures, talks, workshops, and posters. My first day at the conference was spent running back and forth between talks on a wide range of ecological topics. Because the conference was so filled with talks with little breaks in between, this proved to be a mistake. While very informative and interesting, the sheer number of talks I attended proved overwhelming and left me exhausted. The second day I decided to pace myself and carefully chose beforehand which talks I would attend. I made sure to give myself some breaks and plenty of time to digest what I had just learned. One of my favorite parts of the conference was that they had a poster session nearly every evening of the five day event. I greatly enjoyed walking around the poster show floor and perusing the wide variety of scientific posters and infographics on display. I think that the poster format for sharing scientific information is so great because it allows important discoveries and innovations to be easily received and digested by a wide range of audiences. This format also allows for you to personally meet and interact with the authors or researchers behind your favorite presentations. At ESA, I really liked being able to browse the different posters, find ones that interested me, and then discuss the poster with the very person who worked on it. Because the poster is usually presented by the hands that carried out the research, you can often get a personalized and in-depth description of the study, which makes it much more relate-able than reading a journal article or hearing a lecturer present their findings. The experience I gained from my trip to ESA's 100th annual meeting was far beyond what I expected, and I would definitely encourage anybody who hasn't to attend at least one regional or international biology conference or symposium. Maybe CBASS 2016 can whet all of our appetites for the next ESA! Conferences such as ESA are also great because they're often held in really cool cities (like Baltimore!). If the conference itself isn't motivation enough to attend a regional or international conference, maybe the chance to explore new cities will be!
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The Slime Times is written by the Stress After Dark Creative Inquiry TeamScience isn't all white lab coats and ivory pillars, sometimes you just need to get slimy. Archives
August 2016
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