Ask HN: How do you do Conferences?

4 points by jumarm 5 years ago | 2 comments

I applied and was accepted to participate in the Programing Languages Mentoring Workshop [0] at the International Conference on Functional Programming [1] and the main conference in general, my first conference.

As a sophomore in college, I don't feel that I'm prepared to get the most out of attending and my advisor—to no fault of his own, he's interested in Computer-Human Interface and CS education—was not much help.

Since there is no one way to "do" a conference—especially during COVID-19—how do you participate in conferences?

Sidenote: I'm also interested in working on and presenting research to which I'm looking at participating in a REU [2] or one of the two research opportunities my university offers [3,4]. Due to the unnerving end of my freshman year, this summer was a wash.

[0]: https://icfp20.sigplan.org/home/PLMW-icfp-2020?track=PLMW%20%40%20ICFP%20

[1]: https://icfp20.sigplan.org/

[2]: https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/index.jsp

[3]: https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/undergraduate-research/surf/

[4]: https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/undergraduate-research/summer-programs/sure/

brutus1213 5 years ago |

I organized a major ACM CS conference this year. Some thoughts .. you need to be super proactive. A super keen person would read the specific papers from before and ask insightful questions during Q/A. State your name and affiliation. Hear other people asking great questions and engage in discussions with them. If there is a conference networking app or coffee break session, make an effort to participate. In networking, best thing is to be interesting (technically) .. have some of your own original ideas/opinions or projects to discuss. Good luck!

jumarm 5 years ago | |

Thanks for your insight! Although I tried to grok some of the papers submitted, I could only understand some of the jargon off-hand and I'll have to drum up some questions for the workshop on Sunday and be active. Might I ask which ACM conference did you organize? The conferences space is incredibly large and vast in disciplines!