My Time at the 2019 APS March Meeting

This is a quick update from my trip to the 2019 APS March Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts at the beginning of March. I felt like my time overall was somewhat mixed, though positive on balance. On the negative side, my talk was lumped into a totally unrelated session on a Thursday afternoon, in which the talks weren't of interest to me and were generally not so well-delivered, the audience consisted almost entirely of the speakers who left after their own talks (and that included me after I saw what was happening, though I was grateful that some of my friends came for my talk), and the first talk which was supposed to be a 36 minute-long invited talk was canceled in the absence of the speaker, leading to a break during that time. Additionally, my advisor and I were busy preparing a paper unrelated to the work I would be presenting, and I've also been taking my time to figure out what I want to do after graduation, so I didn't prepare a schedule of talks to attend as well as I had in the previous two years. That said, on the positive side, I paced myself properly in attending talks, and I did appreciate having conversations with people from my department as well as people I knew in college about our work as well as future plans. I also had a lot of fun hanging out with friends from college as well as graduate school, and though I could have done a better job networking, I did try to reach out as much as I could. Finally, I had a great time skipping the last day of the conference and visiting MIT instead, where I got to catch up with professors from the physics department as well as other people whom I knew well in college (and met some people for the first time too); I felt like that was a far more useful & productive move. Next year, I hope to be able to present in a session more relevant to my current research interests, and to do a better job of tailoring my networking and session attendance to my future interests (which I hope will have solidified by then).

My Trip to MIT

I had an extremely enjoyable visit to MIT over the last few days. I got back home late last night.
Our hotel was quite nice; it was very well-furnished and looked quite clean and well-maintained despite being a cheaper hotel.
I got to sit in 2 classes: Quantum Mechanics and Statistical Mechanics. I found the former to actually be easier to understand; I was completely lost in the latter.
I got to visit a dorm - Simmons Hall. It is totally wacky in construction and design.
I got to speak with all of the people that I intended [to speak].
I found myself loving Boston - it is quite safe and has a lot of nice parks, restaurants, and other attractions, as well as a whole host of other colleges.
Overall, it was quite a great trip, and I could definitely see myself going to MIT!