Morgan Laner Presenting Poster of her Honors Thesis at Eastern Sociological Society conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

Today, Saturday, February 24, 2018, was the second of my two full days at the Eastern Sociological Society conference in Baltimore, which was my first academic conference experience and has challenged my views of academia, sociological studies, and the concept of research as a profession. For now, however, I will mention the kinds of sessions I have attended so far. While ESS sessions cover a variety of topics, I wanted my experiences to have some sort of environmental commonality, considering that is my major and the career path I plan to pursue. Therefore, many of the sessions I attended looked at food systems and urban development research that I extrapolated to my interest in urban planning and city design. I won’t lie, some of the paper presentations I attended were dull, monotonous, and unengaging. Fortunately most were followed by a crazy passionate researcher; some of the most engaging presentations I heard were on random topics like the internationalization of the furniture market in a small town or the impact of a potbellied pig on public sociology and local government. I was surprised at the different degrees of seriousness each presenter had, as some took the conference as an opportunity to brag about their studies while others focused on engaging undergraduates in their research.

I spent an hour and a half as part of an undergraduate poster session presenting my thesis on the predictors of positive environmental behavior for undergraduate students. This is where I had the most fun so far; I discussed and received feedback on my first major research project with other scholars as well as mingle with other undergraduates going through similar experiences. I am excited to see how the rest of the conference goes and what I will learn!