Conference Day 1: Conference Opening

The American Chemistry Society Annual Meeting in Orlando was my first time attending a national academic conference. It was more inspiring than overwhelming to experience everyone coming from universities and laboratories around the United States as well as international members. I was able to become acquainted with many of them through the various activities in place for academic and networking purposes.

As an undergraduate student I prioritized attending the workshops geared to preparing students for graduate school; resume writing skills, interview tips, and graduate research experience. Attending the Graduate School fair allowed me to browse the graduate schools that focused on the graduate programs of my interest, as well as meet some of the faculty from those departments and understand what they were looking for in incoming students. Conversations like these amplified my interest to apply to graduate school and further my academic track through research. I was later on able to attend the research presentations of many of these professors and really understand the work that went into graduate level research.

The wide range of topics in the many presentations allowed me to understand the innumerable pathways one topic could take through research. In addition to that, the information I learned from many novel research findings was inspiring as it made me realized that we can never truly know enough about anything and that the world around us is just waiting to explored.

This entire experience served not only as an inspiration for me to pursue my academic goals, but it also made me fall in love with what I do in the Rollins laboratory with our professors. It showed me the bigger picture of all the hard work and dedication I put in my studies and my research, because seeing others whether they were also undergraduate or post graduate chemists really made me feel part of a large academic community that really believe in the work they put forth.