Disclaimer: I’ve been to NeurIPS 2014 (back in the days when they were called NIPS), CHI 2017, 2018,(at CHI2019 now) and UIST 2017, 2018. A lot of the following comes from experiences with huge flagship conferences.
Since CHI 2019 is officially underway with the workshops kicking off in the weekends, I wanted to share some of my personal thoughts on what to do when you visit the conference for the first time (as a graduate student)
STUDY THE ANATOMY OF THE CONFERENCE YOU’RE ATTENDING
Not all conferences are the same, but typically there are paper sessions, poster/demo sessions, workshops, and other events like townhall meeting, etc. You cannot attend every session, you need to invest your time and energy wisely.
“Live Events”
I find it much more worthwhile attending “live” events than trying to grab a seat in every session possible. Paper presentations are great because one of the authors will summarize the paper in 15 minutes for you, but you can always read the paper. However, SIGs, Panels and other “conference only” events are “live”.
For CHI, SIGs and Panels are especially great because they discuss the timely issues of the community. Previously I really enjoyed discussions around transparent statistics and on bridging different research norms in different fields.
Sessions
I prioritize those with papers that are slightly outside of my usual radar — I’ll read papers from the usual suspects anyway. It gives me a chance to learn about the most recent and relevant work in the area.
What I love about CHI (or HCI) is that there’s a strong sense of community — that you’re solving problems as a community, not battling against each other to rank who’s better. And different people are taking different perspectives, different methods to look at different interpretations of a problem. I find it really helpful to get a sense of the bigger picture we care about as a community, by attending sessions that are somewhat orbital to my research.
For example, my research is related to learning (outside K-12), so I try to learn about studies people have done with teachers, or how learning happens in makerspace, or novel learning technologies for classrooms.
Networking Events
Most importantly, go to networking events! CHI is known for the “parties” that happen in the evenings. You go to conferences to meet people, otherwise, we can just sit and watch video recordings. Go to these networking events!
Conferences are fun because it’s a gathering. If there’s someone you’d like to get feedback on your research or someone you want to know more about their research, well, you can’t find a better place and timing because that’s what conferences are for.
BUT REMEMBER, it’s totally fine to just go to these parties to have fun with friends.
BUILD A COHORT
Related to networking, I think the sense of a cohort is really important in surviving grad school (apparently even after grad school) and having friends in the same academic community really helps. And meeting my friends is pretty much the biggest reason why I look forward to attending conferences despite having to usually travel 13+ hours.
Make friends, be friendly, and be friend-able. Talk about your joys and struggles of grad school, it’ll build companionship. I spend most of my conference energy on friendships with people I can “grow together”.
TRY OUT DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF YOUR RESEARCH PITCH
The usual tip you find is “to prepare a 1-minute, 3-minute pitch for your research”. On top of that, I like shuffling the pitches a little bit for different people I meet and doing a mini-A/B test on which framing seems to interest people more.
This isn’t about “which marketing idea works?”, but more about which part of my research project are people interested in? Is it the technical depth? is it the findings? Is it the domain area? Is it the study design? etc.
Also, try out your wildest ideas to people. At CHI, the chances are 1) there already is someone who’s working on a version of that idea, and you learn about it 2) find people who also have thought about it, and it makes an interesting conversation. It could even spark collaborations, who knows.
YOU CAN AND SHOULD TALK ABOUT THINGS OTHER THAN RESEARCH
“Are you presenting anything?” or “what’s your research about?” is probably the most common way of saying hello at conferences. It is very tiring to do this for 4 days straight with everyone you meet.
I found it’s also enjoyable to talk about your half-baked ideas or beliefs or vision, which doesn’t have to be as concrete as a specific research project. Talk about what your thoughts are on issues that matter to the community. It can be more research-y like how you think future of work will be with all the automation, or more meta like why you think going to a Journal model is/isn’t a good idea, or how traveling internationally can be a burden for some people, or even about Game of Thrones.
It helps to do some “pondering” and some reading before the conference. I tend to daydream and think about these things a lot. I also make notes to myself to keep track of where my trail of thoughts ended. It’s those “I’ve actually thought a little bit about that the other day,” type of conversations, and they’re really fun too.
AFTER THE CONFERENCE IS ALSO IMPORTANT
After a week of fun, when it’s finally time to go back to your research project, the adjustment and the switch from conference mode to daily-research mode can be unnatural. I think that’s normal.
You’ll be full of ideas and inspirations. But you can’t take all of the fresh ideas into your current (or next) research.
Take some time to reflect on your experience, and selectively decide what you want to take with you. It could be as simple as just a clever experiment design, or a friend you want to keep in touch with. Remember, it’s okay to throw away some of what you picked up.
The conference experience shouldn’t be centered around “research”, but more around the people who do the research.
Most importantly, have fun. Try new things, find out what excites you, and do those things.
Happy CHI!
