Today I sneaked into Room 155 for the New Member Welcome Coffee event. Though a 2nd-time attendee myself and coffee was in fact also poured in the exhibition hall, I was just curious to learn about the experience of new members. There was a long queue to enter the event room since the filling of coffee was the limiting step of this room-entering reaction.
I sat down at a table myself and was quickly joined by other attendees. Among them, staff from the membership committee, two scholars from the UK, one from Qatar, one from the US, and one from Sweden. Once we settled down, the presentation about BPS membership started. Not only did I get a view of the member benefits, but I also learned that there are various committees like the membership committee, CPOW (Committee of Professional Opportunities for Women), that we as members can apply for and be part of these efforts.
Dr. Ashley Carter is a professor at Amherst College and also a member of the membership committee. Dr. Carter shared with us lots of her experiences about BPS and development as a scholar. We discussed preparing posters and seminar talks. Luca raised the question about how it feels when someone invites us for a seminar talk. On the one side, it feels great to accept the invitation and a chance to present the research, on the other hand, it is so stressful preparing for the talk that we couldn't help regretting that. Carter shared how her first student poster competition worked, which was so stressful. Later the seminar talks become more of a way to meet friends at other places and share her research. We were later joined by Dr. Melanie J. Cocco, the chair of the membership committee. Dr. Cocco shared that five years after teaching in college, she became much more relaxed about giving the talks, as it comes naturally.
We also had conversations about preparing for postdoc positions, job hunting, job talks. It was very lucky to have Dr. Carter sitting at our table, the conversation was rich with information. This year we miss the reception event, which is usually hosted in a ballroom with dancing and music. The subgroup dinners are also fewer. Students have fewer chances to interact with each other. But I am glad that there are events like New Member coffee that help us get to know each other and engage in conversations. We even formed a WhatsApp group after the event to hang out for the next few days:)