Sunday, April 25, 2010
April 2010 Conferences: 1 Down, 1 To Go
I was not originally planning to be heavily involved with official events back at Old Ivy this year. After all, what with the hour-long commute between campus and my apartment, it isn't necessarily the most practical thing. Nonetheless, when my adviser approached me at the end of last semester to ask if I wanted to organize our annual workshop on the history of the physical sciences, I agreed.
Why?
Well, given the topic of my dissertation, I would probably be participating anyway. Furthermore, few of my colleagues with similarly relevant research interests who were in town and not gallivanting about in various overseas archives were in a better position to take on the task. Either they had qualifying examinations or other professional commitments which would inconvenience them to an even greater degree.
I also figured that it would be worthwhile to gain some experience figuring out how to run a conference, and while that turned out to be true, it also proved slightly more frustrating than I initially hoped. To be clear, I learned a great deal. For example, I learned that you can't trust graduate students to turn in papers by a given submission deadline. I also learned that finding volunteers to house visiting speakers is a challenge roughly equivalent to performing oral surgery on a caffeinated hippopotamus. And, of course, I learned that despite possessing the single greatest footnote I have ever written, my research project still needs work.
But on the whole, the positive aspects outweighed the negative ones. The opening night dinner went off without a hitch, as students from four different schools convened over Indian food to share news and gossip about their respective programs. The papers were of uniformly high quality with a pretty even mix of topics, ranging from the history of various scientific journals and correspondence networks to the histories of chemistry and physics during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Plus, I learned that I have a talent for leading workshop discussions and maintaining a close adherence to a schedule, something which isn't always easy when academics are involved. And although it was flawed, my adviser hinted that my research project might one day serve as the foundation for a solid article.
So in the end, I think it was a net success, I'm still glad it's all done. By the end of this week I had made the drive between home and campus more than half a dozen times and lost a lot of time which I should have spent on my actual dissertation arranging logistics. As I mentioned in my previous post, I still have another conference paper to present this month. Once that's squared away, it's back to my dissertation, which is, as the saying goes, already in progress.
But of course you know that already.
I was not originally planning to be heavily involved with official events back at Old Ivy this year. After all, what with the hour-long commute between campus and my apartment, it isn't necessarily the most practical thing. Nonetheless, when my adviser approached me at the end of last semester to ask if I wanted to organize our annual workshop on the history of the physical sciences, I agreed.
Why?
Well, given the topic of my dissertation, I would probably be participating anyway. Furthermore, few of my colleagues with similarly relevant research interests who were in town and not gallivanting about in various overseas archives were in a better position to take on the task. Either they had qualifying examinations or other professional commitments which would inconvenience them to an even greater degree.
I also figured that it would be worthwhile to gain some experience figuring out how to run a conference, and while that turned out to be true, it also proved slightly more frustrating than I initially hoped. To be clear, I learned a great deal. For example, I learned that you can't trust graduate students to turn in papers by a given submission deadline. I also learned that finding volunteers to house visiting speakers is a challenge roughly equivalent to performing oral surgery on a caffeinated hippopotamus. And, of course, I learned that despite possessing the single greatest footnote I have ever written, my research project still needs work.
But on the whole, the positive aspects outweighed the negative ones. The opening night dinner went off without a hitch, as students from four different schools convened over Indian food to share news and gossip about their respective programs. The papers were of uniformly high quality with a pretty even mix of topics, ranging from the history of various scientific journals and correspondence networks to the histories of chemistry and physics during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Plus, I learned that I have a talent for leading workshop discussions and maintaining a close adherence to a schedule, something which isn't always easy when academics are involved. And although it was flawed, my adviser hinted that my research project might one day serve as the foundation for a solid article.
So in the end, I think it was a net success, I'm still glad it's all done. By the end of this week I had made the drive between home and campus more than half a dozen times and lost a lot of time which I should have spent on my actual dissertation arranging logistics. As I mentioned in my previous post, I still have another conference paper to present this month. Once that's squared away, it's back to my dissertation, which is, as the saying goes, already in progress.
But of course you know that already.
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