After truly catching up on email for the first time in over a year (omg), I've been corresponding with Dr. Evenbigger who is interested in one of my projects. He thinks I should go to a conference in [beautiful place]. I'm going to the big ecology meeting this summer, but I should go to at least one other conference since I'll be "on the market" this fall (OMG!). I don't know which one yet, but there are 3 on my radar. I've got to balance the networking potential and relevance to my career interests with the cost of getting there. I can cobble together a few hundred dollars here and there but attending meetings is expensive.
I'm also curious, how many people attend the BIG meetings that you go to? 1000? 4000? 10,000? I just have no idea what a really, really big academic conference is.
3 comments:
Totally depends on the field. In astronomy, the big, international meeting that happens every three years we get about 1500. In geology/geophysics, there's a conference once a year where 15,000-20,000 people attend.
The biggest meeting I attend is >20,000. It's too big for my taste. 200-250 is great for a small meeting and 3000-4000 is nice for a big one.
The smaller ones are fantastic for meeting new people, and you might get a better chance to have a meaningful interaction (e.g. dinner) with senior people.
Wow! Those are enormous meetings! I thought 4000 was big! I'm looking at attending a smaller meeting, but I won't know anyone at the conference so I'll be starting from scratch.
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