hotpants is now in sweden at a conference. unfortunately, swedes don't all sound like the swedish chef muppet, but fortunately for us lazy english speakers i don't have to worry about learning their language. tack you very much. i have enjoyed the little that i have seen of their country so far. as far as the food, i'm not sure i will get to like the heavy cream sauces, but the smoked salmon reminds of the lox of the land of my upbringing and the fish that swim up the fish ladder right near where i live now (not that i'm homesick or anything... ;) ) is it me or did that last sentence sound like a bad version of scandanvian writing? i didn't do it on purpose i swear.
ok, enough rambling...
this may be a wtf for just the scientists out there, b/c i don't know what other conferences are like... but does anyone really think 8 hours of talks for 4 days is a good way to learn? especially when some of the talks are less than 10 minutes.
now, i appreciate a good lecture more than most people i know. if it's really good i can appreciate a lecture a couple hours long. i like good stories. but, i'd much rather throw in a few round tables, discussion panels, q&a sessions and other such things even if it would mean actually having to talk to each other in an organized fashion (maybe even before the conference!). it might be better than a snippet of everyone's papers soon to be published. i know that conversations like these are sometimes found in the q&a of presentations (speedily) and sometimes conducted between talks, but they are often only among the most senior faculty.
if i ran conferences, i'd have everyone do a poster, have 2-10 major lectures and have the rest of the sessions be interactive, but we'd still get to go to places like sweden. what do you think future PIs? are you with me?
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5 comments:
hey Z - sounds like you're having a great trip. 8 hours of 10 minute talks does seem excessive. If I could choose I would have a conference where everyone does site seeing, drinking and eating all day, then, for the evening component everyone would do drinking and eating. But that's just me (a future pi - magnum PI that is!!!!) :)
I don't think all conferences are like that. I'm currently at the Vision Sciences Society Conference, and we have talks (blocks of 1.5 hours, 15 minutes per person with Q&A time), and we have posters (blocks of 4 hours for you to walk around).
Evenings are full of events such as demo night, Illusions Contest night, and even a dance night (ever seen famous faculty get drunk and make fools of themselves?...)
It's fun. Just gotta choose the right conference.
the conferences that i go to are pretty varied. they have workgroups, workshops, talks, posters, etc. AND there is one in particular on which the day in the middle is public relations and we go on sight seeing. that's on top of all the planned dinners.
BUT, what i do find WTF is seeing people browsing on their laptops, checking facebook, editing their pics, while the presentations are going on...
i think the conference gods got mad at me for this post. not too long after, i got some form of stomach sickness.... or maybe it was the heavy cream sauces...
but, to jeffrey and faggy n, yeah some conferences are surely better than others. i think this particular conference is going through some growing pains. i'm looking forward to filling out the comment form. hopefully the organizers will read it.
totally agree with "Faggy N". Is that okay for me to write?
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