Hey guys, so it's in the evening and I am just packing for a trip to San Francisco.
The reason I'm going to San Francisco is for this conference called the RSA
conference. So the format of this video will be me at this conference and sort
of giving you the idea of what grad students do at conferences. But I'll have
to say one thing I really dislike doing is I really hate packing. I know some
people who absolutely love it, but I really really dislike it. So I've just
been sort of doing it for a little bit and then doing some other stuff and
trying to resume, so it's taking a lot longer than it should, because I really,
really, really don't like doing it.
So I did manage to finish packing. I'm here in the car the next morning on my
way to the airport. So quick thing about conferences. I think
grad students in general really look forward to conferences. One obviously
it's a way to showcase your work and get feedback you can also learn about other
people's research and talk to others in your field. But also it's a chance for
you to travel somewhere. Most of the time the cost is covered by your advisor and you can
think of it as a reward for a job well done. For me in this specific conference
I'm actually going as an invited member so I don't really have any work to
present. I'm pretty stoked to go I'm originally from around San Francisco so
I'll be staying with my parents the night before and I'm also super stoked
to just enjoy the nice weather, eat the food I missed a lot, and maybe see some
friends.
As you can see I'm at the airport and about to board. I'll see you in California!
I landed in San Francisco after a very long flight. Which I can't—I can't seem
to do these flights anymore. Just waiting for my parents to pick me up, and the
weather here is so much nicer here, holy crap. I love it so much.
So I'm pretty excited for this conference. A lot of big names from my field are gonna be
there giving talks so hopefully I'll be able to network with them and see what
they're up to. I will say that I'm way less stressed than I would be normally aa
conferences because for this one I don't really have a poster or any paper
talk to give. If I did have that I probably would be practicing and be a little more
stressed right now. But right now I'm pretty just relaxing and chillin.
Hey guys, a quick update so I took the time to go through the conference website and
see which events I wanted to attend and which talks I wanted to hear and put it on
my calendar. In conferences like these, especially the big ones, they have like lot of
talks happening at the same time in different locations. Definitely take the
time to, you know, see which talks you're more interested in and sort of schedule them
in a way that you know, you're not running from one building to the
other. Also pro tip, if it's your first time at a conference make sure you leave
some room outside of talks to network with others. That's actually some of
the best times to actually learn is in the hallway, in the lobby, talking to
people and other researchers just like you, you know, share ideas, share thoughts.
Suggest papers to one another. People who've been in conference that a long
time will say that that's actually the best part of conference. So make sure
that you leave some time for that.
Yeah, I'm on the train to San Francisco right
now for the conference. Pretty excited to hear the talks and meet up with
friends but there's always a challenge to balance work and having fun,
especially these kind of trips so, yeah it'll be—it'll be a challenge for
sure.
Hey guys! I'm finally in the elevator at the hotel, after a
longer than needed trip. I think my roomate's already here, so we'll see.
So here's the obligatory hotel room tour. Basically it's just a
standard pretty nice two bed.
So yeah, bathroom's pretty nice too, clean. Bed's nice. That's really all I can ask
for in the hotel. Don't really care too much about the view especially since I've been here
before. First event today is a dinner, free food so I'll definitely be there. Actually should probably check out where it is.
Right now I kinda want to recharge, both
myself and my phone, listening to music on this old phone and filming stuff really
drains the battery.
Hey, so it's the morning of the second day.
First day of the official conference. I'm heading to get checked in, register
and head to the opening session. And today's going to be a busy day, a full day
line of talks. I'm also going to visit my friend for lunch and a few other things
so it'll be fun.
We forgot how hot it is over here, holy shit, I dressed way to0 warmly. Guess that's
what Michigan does to you. I'm gonna die, ugh.
So I finished my check in process, went pretty smoothly. It's a little bit of—
I was being kind of dumb, I forgot that they give you a backpack so now I
have two backpacks I have to lug this one around. I should have a few minutes until
my next scheduled talk. So I'm going to find some quick places to
do some work The trick is finding some down time when
you can in these hectic places. So I managed to find a nice desk that I had a
nice outlet and I set up my work and just to get you a sense of how big the
conference is look how many people there are. Looks like a shopping mall or something.
remember how I said that a big chunk of conferences is meeting people in the
hallway outside talks to share ideas and network? So this conference actually took
that one step further and they actually formalized the system where you can
suggest topics and people can sort of see what topics you want to talk about and
then you schedule meeting time and basically talk about it, so it's
basically like speed dating. And so I'm here a little bit early,
well actually I'm on time, the other person's a little late, but that's alright. But I'm just waiting for the
person whose topic I'm really interested in so yeah.
But the organizers gave me this thing, it wasn't meant to be a
wait, so they gave me a mint. So that's kind of cute and fun.
So the person I'm going to see talk is actually someone who's really big in my
field. He actually graduated the same time that I did from Berkeley,
except obviously he graduated with a PhD and I graduated with a
bachelor's, from undergrad. But I'm a huge fan of him, he does great work so yeah
I'm kind of fangirling right now. It's been a while since I've been able to talk to him.
So whenever you're at a conference you should take the time to check out some other
exhibits that they have, so this one had workshops on how to hack various things
like vehicles and power plants, there was also an exhibit where security companies
came and were promoting their products. We walked around and got a lot of free
stuff, some cool swag of course, but the best part is this right here. Oh yeah, yes,
right there. That's the one.
So when I'm back in the Bay obviously I have to go
get my boba fixture so here's my boba with the obligatory paper straw
of course. yep. Jus thad a quick time in between
some talks to go run out and grab a boba real quick, so yeah, that was good.