During grad school you may be presented with the opportunity to participate in an academic conference. You may feel excited, you may feel nervous or any other emotion associated with presenting in front of your colleagues. If you’re debating whether to present in a conference or not…do it!
When I first began grad school, the idea of presenting at academic conferences was quite nerve-wracking. I had passed up a few opportunities to do so until one day one of my favorite professors suggested one to me. The conference was called SICSSAM (Seoul International Conference on Social Sciences and Management). It’s no secret in my department that I love South Korean culture and entertainment along with a colleague and friend of mine who I co-authored my research with. Our paper covered how Instagram can impact fandom/sasaeng (stalker “fans”) behavior which was quite difficult due to the lack of prior research done on sasaengs.
When my professor suggested this South Korean conference, I will admit my interest in conferences grew exponentially; especially since that’s where our research was focused. I consulted with my co-author and soon enough were were submitting our paper for review.
We had no idea that our paper would get selected by the review committee. After that, everything seemed to happen so fast. We were selected in November, booked our tickets in January, and were on a plane to Seoul, South Korea, in February. We had been so nervous come presentation day, but once we began it came so naturally. We were confident in our research and could recite our presentation with our eyes closed. Afterwards, a few members came up to us and complimented our research as well as asked more questions that we were happy to answer. It was quite the experience presenting and watching the research of others.
Fast forward to a few weeks later and we receive notification that the conference wanted to send our work to get published in an academic journal! We thought that after the conference everything was over but here we were about to get published! Of course, we agreed to the offer and about two months later we were published in Vol. 7, Issue I of the International Journal of Communication and Media Studies; something we never could have imagined when we first applied.
Jump again to August 2017, we receive yet another notification from the publishing company that our paper had won the Best Paper Award! This came as a huge shock to us because one; we thought were done after publication and two; we never thought we would receive this honor considering the number of papers and topics that this publication service receives.
Our research is something that my co-author and I have been passionate about since before even starting grad school. I’d like to think that passion was well-reflected in our work and that people could see that.
Moral of the story is that if you feel nervous about conferences, just give it a chance at least once because you never know who you’ll meet, how you will feel, and what you will accomplish. Your research may even help others in their field.
You can read our publication online at this link! Enjoy!
Also if you’re looking for an academic conference to present at, I recommend the upcoming International Research Conference at Texas State University. Registration begins in early September and the conference will be held November 7-8. The conference is open to any graduate student currently registered at a university. This includes both schools in the United States and international universities. More information can be found HERE!
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