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May 01, 2008

My First Conference

Apparently, Florida is the place to hold a conference for wealthy participants. The annual ARVO (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology) conference was in Fort Lauderdale early this week, and my group got to present a poster there. Now I have presented my work at symposiums as an undergraduate, but this was my first “real” conference, so to speak, so it was definitely as exciting experience. Plus, the ARVO conference basically covers anything and everything about the eye, from neural coding (my work) to surgical techniques to new instrument technologies to demographics of eye diseases to tons of other stuff that I have no hope of understanding, so I was able to see work from many different fields. I also met some of my research collaborators face-to-face for the first time and of course did the proper conference-thing and networked with other students.

As an added bonus, Florida is just a nice place to be, and the conference organizers know it. Like I hinted to at the beginning of this post, Fort Lauderdale has recently (in the last month and a half) hosted three conferences geared towards doctors: one for those specialized in prostate cancer, another for those in breast cancer, and most recently, ARVO (less geared but still plenty of medical professionals). I am not sure if this is a Florida thing either, but alcohol consistently seemed to pop up on this trip. Before we arrived, my labmate and advisor talked about getting margaritas while down there, our hotel booking said “free cocktail per person upon arrival” (we didn’t get one but I am not sure if that was because we arrived at the hotel around 1 am), and on the flight back, the flight attendants could make mixed drinks on request (did I just happen to miss that announcement on other flights?) Anyway, looking at the hotel prices, Florida obviously does not cater towards a research budget, but on the plus side, my labmate and I got to drive a nifty convertible while we were there, much cooler than the economy car my advisor got (though the novelty of a convertible was a bit lost when we saw how many other ones there were on the highway) and probably a much cooler car than any that I would ever be comfortable purchasing. My labmate particularly enjoyed driving with the top-down and trying to show off, sunglasses and all. We also went to the beach for an hour (marked with research talk with our advisor but pretty relaxing nonetheless), met Prof Wyatt’s family, and just enjoyed the sunny Florida weather. Definitely a nice refreshing break before finals and quals.

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3 Responses To This Entry:

    The first conference you go on is always sort of exciting and new. I hope you go on many more just as enjoyable.

    Posted by: ninja on May 6th, 2008 at 9:48 am

    Hi,

    I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
    The first conference is always special and surely you must have learnt alot.
    I am also doing research work in cognitive psychology,AI and software enginnering.
    If possible, i would like to discuss on research.
    Regards,
    Jitesh Dundas

    Posted by: jitesh dundas on May 18th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    i’ve also been to several conferences in florida… seems a popular place.

    Posted by: Laura on May 19th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

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