Rollins College crew at American Chemical Society National Meeting in NOLA

Attending and presenting at conferences provides not only the opportunity to show other in your field your research, but also the opportunity to network and make important connections. During the poster session, I had random graduate students approach me, with various backgrounds, which gave me the opportunity to practice how I would present to someone with a chemical engineering background, versus someone with an organometallic background like me. The graduate student with the organometallic background, Ryan, performed similar research as me with N-heterocyclic carbene ligands in undergrad. I was able to have a truly in-depth discussion with him and he offered valuable advice that I have been putting to use! I also ran into numerous students I met during my graduate school visits (for instance, I met the male student in the photo at UIUC). I attempted to attend the presentations of or just meet up with the various graduate students from the labs I was interested in at the graduate schools I visited, but unfortunately most of those labs were not presenting until after I left the conference. I was able to meet with a graduate student from UT Austin during his poster session which was very informative. I was also able to catch up with some of my lab mates from Georgia tech and fellow summer intern, Katie (in photo), whom I have not seen since the summer. I highly suggest taking advantage of all the networking opportunities at conferences! If applying to graduate school, this is an excellent opportunity to scope out specific lab groups to figure out where to apply.