My First Academic Conference

Last weekend, I presented at my very first academic conference. And, boy, am I glad it's over. I have not experienced that level of stress in a very long time. See, not only did I present at this conference, but I also helped to organize it. The Graduate History Association (GHA) at my university puts on this conference every year, and in my position as Outreach Coordinator I was largely responsible for marketing the event on social media and communicating with all of our panelists. We had planned to hold this year's conference in person for the first time since 2019, but two weeks before it began our university announced that the first two weeks of the semester would be virtual to get over the "holiday hump" of COVID-19. So, we had to transition our conference to a virtual platform at the last minute. It was chaotic and made me want to pull all of my hair out, but we pulled it off and it went smoothly, all things considered.

My presentation was on a paper that I wrote a year ago for my undergraduate senior capstone class. I had not revisited this paper until I sat down to put together the presentation for this conference, so I must admit I was a little rusty. My presentation was at 10AM on Saturday, and I was supposed to present with one other person. However, this person did not show up at first, which increased my anxiety about tenfold because I did not want to be the only presenter. That would mean that the audience would remember my presentation for longer and they would ask me a lot more questions, which I did not want. I wanted to get this thing over with as soon as possible. She did end up showing up towards the end of my presentation, thank goodness. During the Q&A portion of the presentation, I expected (and hoped for) some basic questions about my presentation. Silly me. These people were asking me all kinds of complex questions about the meaning behind my research and the consequences of my research, etc. Y'all, when I tell you I had no idea what to say... I mean I was pretty embarrassed. I felt like these people were going to think that I was stupid and had no place presenting at an academic conference. I left my panel feeling pretty crappy.

The next day, I received an email from a professor that was in my audience. He also was someone who asked me a question that I was unable to answer, that left me feeling particularly bad. His email was short, but it basically said that he had enjoyed my presentation and my research was of interest to him so if I ever had any questions or wanted to talk to someone about my research, he would be willing. After experiencing a weekend that was so stressful, so exhausting, and left me feeling so badly about myself, reading that short email that was honestly probably just an afterthought to the person that wrote it meant everything to me. No matter how genuine he may or may not have been about how much he enjoyed my presentation, it still felt good to read some kind words at a time when I was feeling so burnt out.

I wrote this post partly to vent about a stressful weekend in my life, but also with the hope that it will motivate someone who reads it. There are few things that make me as anxious as having to present, especially in this instance where I was presenting at an academic conference which was something I had never experienced before. But, despite my nerves, I powered through and now I can say that I have presented at an academic conference and add that to my resume. I want to encourage you to go outside of your comfort zone and do something that you know will be good for you in the long-run, despite how much you may not want to do it.

I also want to encourage you to be kind to others. I know for a fact that that was not my strongest presentation. The audience could probably sense my nerves, they could likely tell that I wasn't too brushed up on the information that I was talking about, and they probably felt like I could have done much better. Regardless, one professor decided to take a minute out of his day to send me an email that made me feel a thousand times better. He probably didn't think much of it, and probably won't think about it ever again, but I will remember it for a long time. So, if you ever have a little voice in the back of your mind that makes you think you should reach out to someone to just give them a small compliment, do it. Even if you think that it won't make a big difference, it's still worth doing because you never know what it could mean to someone.