Punch go brrrrrrrr | /r/ShitPostCrusaders/ | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure

$other stand users Jotaro and star platinum: explaining their ability : Ora ora ora Presenting work at conferences is an important part of being a scientist. It falls under the broad umbrella of making your rescarch known to the scientific community. Being able to create and deliver a good presentation is an inherent part of graduate and postdoctoral training. Let's say you are a junior scientist-a graduate student or a postdoc- and you are attending a conference. Generally, your primary purpose is to present a paper (otherwise it would be considerably harder to justify your espenses to the university financial services and therefore harder to get your trip reimbursed on the professor's grant). You present a paper and hopefully do a docent job. The probability of having a talk vensus a poster depends on the field and the particular conference. In some communities posters are looked down upon, in others, poster sosions are a very important mode of interaction among the conference participants. If you have a talk, ideally you practiced in front of your group members at lcast once ("the dry run"), in my group we do it once for senior grad students and postdocs, usually more than once for inexparienced students. So you survived the talk and or your poster session. What do you do the rest of the time? Are you alone at the conference, without anyone you know? Do you pahaps have some of your group mates around? Is the whole group attending, including your advisor PI? If there are other group members around, you may even go together to do some sightseeing, Also, it is important to actually take advantage of the technical program and attend the talks and poster presentation of other people whose work relates to yours. But whether you are attending the conference by yourself or are there with the group, conferences are your chances to mcet other scientists and enhance your professional... NETWORK. (bwahahahaha!) Networking is considerod a dirty word among many academics, who seem to viscerally reject it as being a gauche corporate tem for schmoozing, something that the presumably intellectually pure ivory-tower dwellers noodn't engage in. In my opinion, it just means meeting poople, getting to know them, and generally trying to not be a douche to them, whoever they are. Some small fraction of the poople you meet may tum out to be professionally uscful to you. Others, not so much. But spending a few minutes chatting with somoone nood not be torture. Like any group of people, scientists vary in their social prowess. Still, 1 think it's safe to say that people in the physical sciences are not considered the beacons of congeniality. These days, however, you cannot be an extremcly suscessful scientist without at least average social skills. For instance, I know a very successful young PI who would come to a conference with a list of people he wanted to meet, and he literally would not rest until he met every single one of them. He is supremely encrgetic and charismatic, probably on par with the best ad exccutives, lawyers, or businessmen. He also happens to be a very creative scientist, and this combination of extroversion, charisma, and technical excellence is a great recipe for his sucoess in today's "show me the grants" science model. Most other scientists are more introvertod or not quite as charismatie. Still, networking is necessary. unavoidable, but can luckily be even fun. Or, at k bearable. - The best way to make good professional celion workshops, where attendance is smaller but the attedbes have a lot of chance to interact with one another. After 2-3 years of showing up, poople will start rocognizing you and saying hi' just bocause they have seen you around. Even if you foci awkward and totally out of place the finst (or socond, or third) time around, just showing up repcatodly will make people used to you and you might actually start focling like you belong thare. What I would recommend for a junior scientist from grad student to tenure-track faculty is to identify 2-3 small or medium conferences whare if makes sense for you to show up every time, it is the best way to find a community where you will comfortable, and where you can foel supported, both in the abstract sense and in terms of having future collaborators or just general connoisseurs and proponents of your work. You don't have to force it. There are plenty of relatively low-effort opportunities for networking at conferences. Every conference has some sort of an opening reception, most have a banquet near the end, then there is the poster sossion or sessions, coffee breaks, and lunch breaks. These are all chancos to talk to poople if you fee like it. I completely understand not wanting to talk to anyone, wanting to have your or ra......... aTanvir point of becoming ike moetings, like The best way to make good professional connections is at small or mid-size moetings. like worksbops, where attendance is smaller but the attendoes have a lot of chance to interact with one another. After 2-3 years of showing up. poople will start rocognizing you and saying hi' just bocause they have seen you around. Even if you feel awkward and totally out of place the first (or socond, or third) time around, just showing up repeatodly will make people used to you and you might actually start fouling like you belong thare. What I would recommend for a junior scientist from grad student to tenure-track faculty is to identify 2-3 small or medium conferunces where if makes sense for you to show up every time, it is the best way to find a community whcre you will comfortable, and where you can foel supported, both in the abstract sense and in tems of having future collaborators or just guneral conneisseurs and proponents of your work. You don't have to force it. There are plenty of relatively low-effort opportunities for networking at conferences. Every conference has some sort of an opening reception, most have a banquet near the end, then there is the poster session or sessions, coffee breaks, and lunch breaks. These are all chancos to talk$