hniw.us On life in Seattle and things best left unsaidお化粧はどしたの芸者さん

Thoughts on my first official conference as a graduate student

First off, I am not mean enough for the DC area. While I have been to the DC area once or twice as a child, I was just that, a child and I was buffered from the reality of DC by my grandparents and the safety of their van. I didn’t have much trouble making it from my terminal to the metro. I believe I was even fairly successful in determining the route I needed to take to get to my destination. Where I did experience trouble was in determining wether the listed price was for my total trip, including a transfer from the Blue line to the Orange line. The lady at the metro stand wasn’t much help either. She appeared as if she hated her job and as if answering the questions of weary travelers was the last place she wanted to be. I know it is easier said than done, but if you don’t enjoy dealing with customers or providing them with a satisfactory experience, then you would be best to seek employment outside of the field of customer service.

My second problem with DC was in transferring from the Blue line to the Orange line. I was raised to be polite and I have the mistake of listening to the loud voice instructing me to clear the path for people wishing to exit the metro. I did just that and in doing so, I was summarily pushed out of the way of people in more of a hurry than I wanting to enter the train and I nearly lost my bag as the door closed on it as someone shoved me back onto the stand. This trip has made me miss the usually polite demeanor of those I share the Pacific Northwest with. They have their problems, but I’ve never experienced quite this level of rudeness by those wishing to enter an over crowded bus and these are busses that run, at best, every 15 minutes. The metro I was trying to enter was arriving, on average, about every 5 minutes.

Second was the conference itself. I had to take a cab to the site as the shuttle was running late and there wasn’t very good communication with the people on site to wrangle all the individuals waiting on said shuttle. I had my suspicions about a group I saw in the lobby, but I did not want to single them out or assume that they might be the group I was looking for because they fit a certain demographic. A sign, however small, on either the bus or the handler would have easily rectified the situation.

And then I arrive at the site. The individuals at MITRE were top notch. They new where I need to go and promptly took me to the right people. Those people appeared a bit more organized and allowed me to confirm my suspicion on the person I believed to have been the handler. After that, there was little direction. I wasn’t presenting and that left me in a sort of limbo position where they weren’t sure what to do with me. I ended up watching the presentations and came away with some awesome ideas I would like to try to incorporate into my own future presentations, but I was still left with the feeling that the event was lacking in structure and organization. The tour of the center later on in the evening only cemented that idea.

As for the main reason why I wanted to attend, the networking session. It was all but non-existant. There was an open bar area with some food they tried to pass off as a sort of dinner. I had little idea of who was a fellow, administrator or what-have-you. The schedule led me to believe that there was to be a separate, better organized event for current fellows and alumni. I don’t feel as if that was the case. It wasn’t, however, a total loss as I did manage to get some networking in but as many of the administrative types new each other already, it felt more like a get together for old friends to catch-up than an event for new fellows to interact and expand their social networks.