Dear Readers,
The Association for Psychological Science (APS) is holding its annual meeting in Washington DC this year, which makes it easy than usual for me to attend. I am generally not a fan of big conventions (c.f., prior comments on the APA convention). At smaller conferences you can meet new people, have lots of good unplanned conversations, and see lots of things you are interested in. In my general experience at big conferences, you can say "hi" to lots of people, but not really meet them; everything is too anonymous for unexpected good conversations; and there are tons of talks, but few are interesting. I am hoping for advice about whether or not I should give APS a try. In particular, I would like to know what types of positive experiences (if any) people have had there, and/or why you might think APS is worth prioritizing over other options.
Many thanks!
Eric
Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I can help much with the question in your post, but I can say that I agree with your observations of the advantages of smaller conferences. Unfortunately, that's all I really have experience with, but I would imagine that whilst there would be difficulties in getting involved in detailed discussions with others at larger conferences, there would also be significant advantages in that you'd experience a wider range of opinions, meet more contacts, and generally get exposed to more research that you might have missed out on at smaller conferences.
If I were you, and the conference was accessible and affordable, I'd definitely go along. You can't go wrong with learning about new research.
Sorry my comment won't be much help, I mostly wanted to comment to thank you for adding me to your "Other blogs" list. As a new blogger, the massive spike (for me) in my traffic was too much to ignore so I had to find out where it was coming from. I've only skimmed your blog and I'm enjoying what I've been reading. I'm not sure I belong alongside some of the other high profile blogs and brilliant writers that you have in your list, but I won't complain!
Thanks again.
Eric, I liked APS this year - a lot - b/c there was quite a lot of stuff I bumped into that I had fun listening to, and I did pick up a few unexpected ideas from fields I wouldn't otherwise encounter much (studies in disaster response, for instance, which I love but don't usually have time to read). Granted, I went there specifically for music. I am thinking of going this year though.
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