Being a newly minted junior this year, I wanted to try my hand at attending conferences and improving my presentation skills. Lo and behold, the perfect opportunity presented itself this summer when I received an email from the Physics, Math, Astronomy department (cus I’m a physicist, y’know :D) stating there was a low-cost conference in California that I could get accepted to. I talked to my research mentors, and with their help, was able to submit an abstract in time and get accepted! I was delighted to get the chance to go to Santa Cruz, and doubly so since I didn’t have to pay for housing. The hotel was covered by the conference organizers, and my flight was subsidized by the PMA department’s funding for student conferences, which comes in pretty snazzy for cases like these.
The conference I went to was the American Physical Society Far West Section Meeting, and it was held at UC Santa Cruz this year. I didn’t have much experience with public speaking or presentations, so I was grateful to get the opportunity to talk about my work in a low stakes setting like this. Arriving there on the first night, I was taken aback by their campus, which seemed to be embedded in the middle of a redwood forest??
I attended a few talks, spoke with some researchers from a few institutions, and decided to call it a night. The following morning was the big day, where I’d have to lug around my poster and set up shop. I woke up in a daze, my palms were sweaty, knees were weak, arms were heavy . . . not literally, but figuratively. I was feeling pretty nervous about presenting but was excited to do so nonetheless. I got in my Uber and headed towards The Scary Place.
After the first person came up to my poster, the nerves washed away and I settled in to my presentation! The hour and a half block I had seemed to fly by pretty fast, and I enjoyed talking with different people at various levels of understanding about my work the past summer. I got to practice my speaking and got experience with designing a good poster. After dinner, we attended a talk from science comedian/communicator Brian Malow, which was pretty fun and cool to hear. The following day was my last half day in Santa Cruz, so I thought what better way to spend it than at the beach!
I got some fish & chips on the coast, saw awesome marine mammals, and got to bask in the sun a bit before flying back to cozy Pasadena. All in all, the conference was a great experience, and I’m glad I got the chance to practice my skills more and get comfortable explaining myself and my research. Santa Cruz was a beautiful city, and I hope my path in life brings me back there some day.
