My first (ever) international conference.
I’m writing this post as I’m cramming to finish this site before this year ends. To start this blog, I thought I could share one of my first milestones as an early career researcher–my first international conference presentation!
This is me presenting our work entitled “The Influence of Warmer Sea Surface Temperatures on Southwest Monsoon Rainfall in the Philippines” in the Climate Change, Monsoon and Extreme Weather Events session (AS-03-26) of the Asia-Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) 11th Annual Meeting in Sapporo, Japan last July 29, 2014.
The person you see here is me a few months after I received my Applied Physics undergrad degree, and the work I'm presenting is a revamped version of my undergraduate thesis.I applied for an oral presentation because at that time I did not like making scientific posters (now I prefer them!). Back then, I didnt know that oral presentations were typically alloted for the seasoned experts in the field. I dont know why but the session convener decided to give me that platform to share our work, and I’m so thankful to them for giving me this moment to remember.
I remember how I prepared for sooo long for this <15min presentation–I think I prepared for this longer than my actual undergrad thesis defense! After reading papers of my co-participants, admittedly, our methods were very crude and findings were preliminary. A few days from our flight and as the imposter syndrome and anixety is creeping over me, I definitely recall impulse buying that blazer (which didn’t fit well of course) to look more “professional”.
The session audience! Its safe to say 95% of this room have/are taking MS/PhD degrees already
As you may see in the first few minutes of the video, I was super nervous and panicky and worried about blanking out or exceeding my time allotment. But I do remember the feeling midway when I hit autopilot mode and just blabbered away as if I was the only person in the room. It was blissful and very fulfilling!
Immediately after my talk, I went back to my advisor and asked her to introduce me to the session convener, who was one of my idols in the field at that time. We had a short chat and left the hall right after as the next session prepares.
My conference id tag! I volunteered to man some of the sessions to save on the registration fees
After my presentation, I got to finally enjoy all the science around. It was pretty intense for me as an undergraduate to see this level of output, and back then it really was out of my league to produce something like those. But I was fascinated like never before. We also got to enjoy Sapporo City after conference hours (this was also my first international trip!)
Its been 6 years since this international conference and I could say that it definitely solidified my plans to go for further studies in the field.
For those of you who want to join one, please do so! Please do not be discouraged by the effort and resources it would entail– its super worth everything!
And for those of you who are supervisors/project leaders, please give it your all to connect your students to funds or grants to enable them to join these conferences. They’ll be so thankful to you for it!