Last weekend we took a trip up to San Fransisco where I presented my paper from Guatemala at the national American Anthropology Association conference held at the Hilton San Fransisco. Robert came with me and we had a great time checking out San Fransisco.
We got there Wednesday night and I went to the conference all day Thursday and got a feel for the presentations. I didn't present until Friday and I was really glad I had Thursday not to stress and just check out the conference. It was really really fun. There are hundreds of presentations each day so attendees just look through the program book and choose which ones sound interesting. The presentations were all broken down into sessions on a broad topic, and within the session were four or more fifteen minute presentations. Everything is really open so people just come in and leave whenever they want (but usually between presentations). I went to sessions on NGOs, working with migrant children in schools, violence against women, and saw some student films on child soldiers in Nepal and Italian/Texan traditions. It was such a cool experience and the attendees and presenters varied from student to professionals to professors (although there are very few undergrads, especially undergrad presenters). I was really glad I decided to go.
The rooms ranged in size from very small (like a small college classroom) to very large auditorium-like rooms. I went to check out our room the day before and was shocked at how huge it was. It was bigger than any of the other rooms I had been in that day. I was feeling pretty confident about presenting after watching so many people that day, but I was pretty bummed out our room wasn't more intimate.
The next day I spent most of the morning getting ready (btw, printing at Kinkos is ridiculously expensive). Our session started at 1:45 and we were suppose to have about nine presenters. I walked in the room at 1:30 and was enthusiastically greeted by two of the other students who had gone to Guatemala with me. They were happy to see me again, but probably most happy because they knew of only one other presenter who was actually going to be there and at least three that had canceled.(They also could tell right away that I was pregnant, which shocked me. I didn't think it was so obvious yet) I think they were just happy to see another person show up! Soon the other person they had known about arrived plus one more student. He brought news of another student who was coming, but whose flight was just barely landing at SFO. So when we started we had five presenters plus one on the way. Four people canceled or didn't show up, which made us a little nervous because now we had an extra hour to fill up.
Turns out time really didn't matter. Its pretty hard to present all your research in 15 minutes and a lot of people usually end of talking really fast or not getting as far as they wanted in their presentation. Since we had the extra time our prof. let us take as long as we needed without rushing us about ending on time.
They also let the audience ask as many questions as they wanted afterwards. Stink! Q & A is the worst part about presenting because you can't prepare for it. You just have to think on your feet and do your best. I had been so happy we wouldn't have time for Q & A. It also happens to be the most productive and interesting time because you are able to get feedback, so our prof. was thrilled we would get the chance. We finished the session only fifteen minutes before our scheduled time was up.
Our audience was pretty small, maybe ten people, but they were mostly older scholars and professors on Maya studies, so they were a pretty high caliber group to present to. We put our chairs in a sort of circle with the presenters on the top of the circle. By the end of the session more people had come and gone and there was more of division between "us" and "them. " I thought I did pretty well, no major mistakes, and I did good on the Q & A too. I'm really glad I did it and I am really glad it is over. It turned out to be pretty low pressure and it was great experience.
2 comments:
What a cool experience! I am sure you did very excellent. I know I would have died doing something like that!
Way to go Mel, I am so glad you had a good experience. We are very proud of you, in fact I bragged about you in RS for shining moments.
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