Academic Conferences

Posted by Naomi Rockler-Gladen Oct 29, 2007

I ended my career as a professor in May, and I don't miss it. Well, I do miss a few things, like intellectual conversations and interactions with students, but there's one thing about academia that I don't miss one bit. And that's the experience of the academic conference.

If you've never been to an academic conference, it goes like this. Every year, hundreds and possibly thousands of professors and grad students in an academic discipline (like communication, or philosophy, or aerospace engineering) meet for about four days in a hotel. During this time, they give presentation on their research and listen to other people's presentations. They also do lots of schmoozing and networking. In their off time, they get to do some exploring of the conference city.

I had fun at some of my conferences. I met many amazing people and had the opportunity to visit cities like New Orleans, Miami, Seattle, and San Francisco. But overall, the experience was a bit dreadful. I'm a little on the shy side, so the huge morass of people wandering around and networking was overwhelming. And I guess I just had problems taking the whole thing seriously. There are so many panels that you're lucky if you get 10 people to listen to your presentation. I would wander around and try to network and wonder, is this worth the taxpayer dollars it cost for my school to fly my here and put me up in a hotel?

Anyway, I realize i have a bad attitude. Some people do enjoy conferences and find them beneficial tot their careers. And here's some helpful advice about surviving your first academic conference.