A week ago, I had just come back from Münster, Germany for a conference
hosted by the European Association of Work and Organisational Psychologists. Before the conference started, I attended a
doctorial consortium, a pre-conference workshop event exclusively for PhD
students. This was a great way to start the conference. While still building an
academic network, attending conferences can feel a bit overwhelming because I
don’t know that many people. So the doctoral consortium provided a good
opportunity to meet a whole bunch of other PhD students which meant that I
recognized many faces during the conference. We also listened to three talks on
“creativity during your PhD”, “publishing do’s and don’ts” and “lessons learnt”
– all of which were inspiring, engaging and useful.
I attended a combination of sessions throughout the next two
days – keynotes, symposiums, presentations, and posters – on a variety of topics
both related to my research areas and areas I just find interesting. Most of
the talks I attended were of a high quality and I was impressed with the
magnitude of research occurring all across the world. I also did a presentation
on an article I am busy writing for my PhD, and this was a good exercise – both
for clarifying my own thoughts and having an opportunity to discuss it with
other people.
I set myself an objective to network at this conference, and
I think I was quite successful in doing that. I think being a bit more sure of
my own research, aware of some of the names of key researchers in the field,
and more clear as to what my objectives for networking were, all helped me to
seek out some people and make contact with them. Overall, I was impressed with
how willing other researchers were to spend time talking to me. All of these
contacts are good for future potential collaborations, possible future jobs or
potential visiting scholarships or study exchanges.
I always leave conferences feeling simultaneously totally
exhausted and energized. The challenge that awaits in the next few days is to
follow up with my new connections, but also to begin applying the things I
learnt and solidify my learnings.
Münster was a great city to have a conference too with a
picturesque old town that we walked through every day to get to and between the
multiple conference venues and distinct
student feel and atmosphere to the city. Münster is also a city full of
cyclists – they were everywhere – and clearly we were the foreigners who didn’t
know the implicit rules of pedestrian and cycling etiquette. I was quite
concerned about getting run over! Europe has been hit by some unseasonably cold
weather, so it was rather icy during the conference, which in a way was a good
thing – I was definitely more awake!
Along with professional gain, these conferences also provide
me with some valuable personal insights. The longer I continue in academia and
research (not that 1.5 years is long), I increasingly realize how much I enjoy
it. I don’t know what my future holds after my PhD (which is a good thing), but
I do know that I will consider a career in research and or academia. And, as
has been written on this blog before, these types of experiences reinforce for
me how much I have adjusted in the short time I have lived in Europe. Being in
Germany felt so foreign with all the language and culture differences. When I
arrived in Switzerland almost a year and a half ago, it too felt so foreign.
And now it is home. The processes of acculturation and adjustment are really
interesting to me (I won’t be surprised if I do research on this one day) and I
was once again surprised by how adaptable us humans can be!
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