John Williams and Dr. Queen at the Southeastern Psychological Association Conference

My first morning, Thursday, March 8^th, 2018, was my first time at the Southeastern Psychological Association Conference and I was both nervous and excited to present my research in front of my peers and professionals in the field at the undergraduate poster session. My first chance to share my research actually came when I struck up a conversation with the person presenting on the board next to mine. He had failed to follow the size limitations the conference had set and his poster was too big for his board. Despite this he was excited to present and we exchanged the details of our projects. I found that it was much easier to explain my research than I thought it would be and I was very excited not only to be able to share my research but also to learn about the studies that other students were doing. As people started to file into the room they began to look at each poster and sometimes stop and ask questions. The first few times I explained my research to people I stuttered a little and made a few mistakes in my prepared speech but the more people I talked to the more confident I became and I was able to have some very interesting conversations with people who had done research in similar areas. One woman in particular specialized in locus of control research, which was a trait I was looking at and she said found my results interesting. She suggested that I should take a look at how cultural differences affected it. Meeting these people who were so knowledgeable and getting feedback from them was both humbling and extremely valuable in terms of getting a new perspective on my own research.