I'm going to my First Ever Scientific Meeting tomorrow, in DC. I am beyond excited, and just an itty bitty nervous, but I have received the best advice ever before going. I figured I'll share that now, and then recap when I get back what worked the best.
Dress code:
Business casual, but don't look like a lawyer.
It's better to be over dressed than under dressed, unless you have Nobel prize winning data. Then you can wear whatever you want.
This one is my favorite: Dress as seriously as you wish to be perceived. Which I think is exceptionally helpful for those of us that have round faces and tend to look a lot younger than we really are.
For the poster:
Put yourself out there. As people walk by, stop them and say, "Can I tell you about my poster?" Otherwise, no one will stop. And if you ask, they'll be guilted in to saying yes.
This goes along with put yourself out there, but be engaging. Eye contact, and all that. Introduce yourself within the first sentence.
Don't undermine your data/shoot yourself in the foot. Play up that negative result!
Anything I'm missing? I'm all going-to-my-first-meeting jittery. I'm super excited. Hopefully I'll come back with good stories. And no tears.
Showing posts with label poster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poster. Show all posts
Friday, September 9, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Poster woes
About six months ago, our PI sent around an email alerting us to a meeting and saying that anyone who wanted to go could submit a poster and go.
Apparently six months ago I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and excited about an international meeting (for, uh, people not in the US), and science!, and hotels! And I was working on a project that I thought would make a good poster, so I wrote up and abstract, ran it by the boss, and submitted it. Lo and behold it was accepted! And I was very excited until someone kindly told me that pretty much everyone gets posters accepted, because, well, you can just put up a poster anywhere. Ok. So, a little bit of a let down, because it's like getting the "Most Improved" award on a sports team, because you just know that everyone gets an award because they can't just not give you one, but clearly you were not the most valuable or had the most headers. (Note to children's sports coaches, to an overly-sensitive 9 year old, getting "Most Improved" is pretty much the Worst Thing Ever.)
Well anyway, back to the saga of my poster. The problem was, that when I wrote my abstract and submitted my poster six months ago, I figured that after six months I would get the beautiful results that I hypothesized and make a brilliant poster and then I would get discovered and receive an honorary PhD and a book deal. (I think big, ok?) And of course, this does not happen. Not only do I not have great results, but I am also lacking on actual data. There were some quality issues and long story short, well, there isn't really a great system for detecting copy number variations between monozygotic twins.
The meeting is in three weeks, and my PI wants to see my poster by the end of next week to have time to look and critique and change. Oh perfect! That means I have a week! I'll start today!
And this is what I have so far.
Too bad you can't actually put crickets chirping on a poster. Because that is what my powerpoint slide right now is doing at me. It's chirping.
So what am I supposed to do? Pictures? I'm thinking of bringing some of my daughters stickers from home and maybe decorating it some. You know, draw their eyes away from the big empty space that is, well, the entire poster. Maybe some sort of post-it note collage? Anyone have any ideas when, you know, you have to distract people from the fact that you don't have any results?
Apparently six months ago I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and excited about an international meeting (for, uh, people not in the US), and science!, and hotels! And I was working on a project that I thought would make a good poster, so I wrote up and abstract, ran it by the boss, and submitted it. Lo and behold it was accepted! And I was very excited until someone kindly told me that pretty much everyone gets posters accepted, because, well, you can just put up a poster anywhere. Ok. So, a little bit of a let down, because it's like getting the "Most Improved" award on a sports team, because you just know that everyone gets an award because they can't just not give you one, but clearly you were not the most valuable or had the most headers. (Note to children's sports coaches, to an overly-sensitive 9 year old, getting "Most Improved" is pretty much the Worst Thing Ever.)
Well anyway, back to the saga of my poster. The problem was, that when I wrote my abstract and submitted my poster six months ago, I figured that after six months I would get the beautiful results that I hypothesized and make a brilliant poster and then I would get discovered and receive an honorary PhD and a book deal. (I think big, ok?) And of course, this does not happen. Not only do I not have great results, but I am also lacking on actual data. There were some quality issues and long story short, well, there isn't really a great system for detecting copy number variations between monozygotic twins.
The meeting is in three weeks, and my PI wants to see my poster by the end of next week to have time to look and critique and change. Oh perfect! That means I have a week! I'll start today!
And this is what I have so far.
So what am I supposed to do? Pictures? I'm thinking of bringing some of my daughters stickers from home and maybe decorating it some. You know, draw their eyes away from the big empty space that is, well, the entire poster. Maybe some sort of post-it note collage? Anyone have any ideas when, you know, you have to distract people from the fact that you don't have any results?
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