Speaker 1: So the next thing you might be wondering is, okay, what do the talks look like? So there's actually lots of different types of presentations. And when you submit to present at a conference, you usually are submitting a particular type of presentation or submission. So you're submitting specific type of proposal for example you may be submitting a poster submission which i've talked about on my social media in the past a poster presentation really looks like a big science fair for adults so it's a bunch of boards lined up you put your poster up there and then people kind of walk around and ask you questions and you talk about it other types of presentations include workshops so there were some like how to publish in an academic journal um i went to a writing workshop how to build your writing village to promote your productivity they're also continuing education workshops so those tended to be a little bit longer and those who are licensed professionals who need to have continuing ed on a regular basis get continuing ed credits for that but you could attend even if you don't need ce credits so that was cool those tended to be more like symposia so that means there's one overarching topic and then there's a lot of smaller maybe 15 to 20 minute presentations within that general theme and the idea is that you're learning about that overarching topic and getting continuing ed credit in that topic their other type of talks were roundtable discussions i think they call them critical conversations this year but those tend to be more discussion based so those look like yes you have a presentation you may have slides i did a critical conversation with my best friend and colleague and a faculty member who's a great mentor of mine so we did a critical conversation and it is much more discussion based so you have have lots of questions, you're presenting some general themes, maybe some theory, maybe some cases, and then you're asking the attendees to really engage in a conversation. So I attended a talk like this that was about the role of spirituality and help seeking for intimate partner violence, which is a research interest of mine, and that presentation was really cool. There were slides and they did share about their research and the work that they're doing, but then they had these really great questions and they asked us to get into groups and discuss them. that's that's one type of presentation that you might find at an academic conference especially APA so a question that I'm sure is on your mind is did I present at the conference what was my presentation like so as I mentioned briefly yes I did present at the conference I did a roundtable slash critical conversation I was the first author of this presentation but I developed it pretty equally with my co-author who's a best friend of mine and other student in my program Chika and one of our faculty members at our institution who is a great mentor of mine. So it was three of us women of color psychologists and we presented on how to navigate multiple systems within couples therapy during COVID-19. During the 2020 to 2021 academic year all of us were doing telehealth couples therapy because there was a global pandemic and we couldn't do in-person therapy, but we were also seeing that as individuals and as clinicians working with clients, all of us were navigating a lot of different things happening. So it was not just COVID, it was also a ton of highly publicized racist events in this country. So the murder of Black people, Asian Americans being targeted because of their identity, the 2020 election, immigration you know rights and and anti-immigration policies so we talked about how to do couples therapy and navigate all of the systemic forces that are impacting our clients and us how to use anti-oppressive practices and create an anti-racist space in a therapy room in a virtual therapy room and it was meant to be a discussion-based presentation which it was we had a pretty small turnout, I think probably less than 10 attendees, but the division that we were presenting in, which was the couples and family therapy division of APA, is relatively small in and of itself. The community of folks who do couples and family therapy compared to all of the other people who are attending APA is relatively small, so for us it was actually a really good turnout. There was also other talks scheduled at the same time with really interesting topics, and that's one of the things one of the challenges I don't know if it's really a pro or a con but one of the things as a presenter is you may be up against really interesting really meaningful presentations in similar areas that are happening at the same exact time and honestly as a speaker I was like I wish I could attend this talk but I'm actually speaking at that time so that happens I think that's okay the people who want to be there who are able to be there are there and I really enjoyed presenting with my best friend with a mentor who I really look up to who has guided me through my program and our presentation was great I think we got lots of great questions and engagement and at the end of the day there's no right or wrong way to do these presentations right as long as we're presenting the topic that we plan to and people that are attending receive it well I think everything is great the interesting thing about presentations overall that you may not know if you've never attended is that you submit your proposal you just submit an abstract here's what we want to talk about and here's the format that we want to do it in and you might give some brief overview of what you're gonna cover in your presentation and you get accepted or you get rejected and after that what you include is really up to you there's nobody you know checking and monitoring and making sure that you cover the things that you said you were going to cover there's no one making sure that you don't go over time there's this overall trust right that is as a professional you're submitting on a certain topic that you have expertise in that topic obviously you include a bio and stuff and that the rest is up to you which is really great so we did have slides we also had discussion questions and what was really great to see in our presentation and in others is that there's a huge variety in the type of event that you're going to attend so there were some speakers who had um songs who had to stand up and do like movement there were talks that had small groups there were some rooms where you're sitting in round tables and you're actually engaging with people i had other talks where they asked us to sit in a circle and talk with each other and connect. There were some talks where you're just listening and others where they're passing the mic around and they want you to engage in discussion. So a huge variety in your experience, even going from talk to talk. So that's the general overview of how it went for us. I was really pleased and just glad that we were able to present something. I think it's a huge honor to be able to present at APA because it is such a big conference and I imagine that there's a ton of people, like so many people submitting proposals and to get something accepted, especially as a first author. It feels amazing, so I'm really proud that we were able to do that. There are also big like keynote addresses, right, that are done by maybe the president of a division or somebody who has spent a lot of time doing work, really meaningful work in the field. There's also awards. There's another type of event, which is not really a presentation. It's like social hours, so there might be each division might have like a social hour and you go and network with the leadership in the division or just other professionals in that division that's a great opportunity to meet other people who have a shared interest as you aside from attending talks so you might attend a talk within your research interest and you can at the end go and ask questions and connect and exchange emails with the speakers or other attendees or you can attend a division event where you're meeting people who are also members of that division for example the trauma division and this is a cool way to connect with people and eventually collaborate right i ended up meeting some people who i wanted to maybe publish with and what i was pleased to see is that people are really open to that people are really excited to talk about their work and we're excited to talk about our own work and it's a space that for me as a graduate student really cultivated a lot of inspiration so especially seeing lots of women of color presenting and going to talks within my interests so things about intimate partner violence trauma collective healing and seeing a lot of women of color who have contributed significantly to the field really presenting their work and looking confident and making these amazing contributions that i'm like i can't wait to be in this role and now i'm like my mind is buzzing with all these ideas and papers i want to write and studies i want to do so for graduate students especially maybe even for undergraduate students it's a place to spark your creativity and your curiosity and give you an eye and give you a window into what a career in psychology especially in psychological research could look like which is really cool so I pretty much covered what it looks like to go to a conference what types of events are there who is there what my presentation was like another great thing about attending conferences is that you get to pick and choose right I mentioned the app earlier and how you can kind of make your schedule you get to go to as much or as little conference stuff as you want to because again it's very independent you're paying to register you're paying to travel there and then it's really up to you what you want to get out of it different professionals take different approaches some people go only for the day that they're presenting and then they're out of there because they're really busy or maybe they've attended tons of conferences and they don't need a network with any more people which is understandable and some people want to go for the entire conference and they want to attend as many things as possible and i find that at every conference that i attend i have a different approach it depends on the location it depends on what's going on in my life at the time and I actually attended a lot of APA things so I was not there for all of the days it was Thursday Friday Saturday and I only attended Friday and Saturday I think that was perfect my flight was the morning of my presentation I arrived around 6 a.m. which meant that I did an overnight flight and then my presentation was about 4 p.m. so I had lots of time during the day to not only rest but also attend different conference presentations meet some people that I had wanted to meet and then have some time to like sit back, review my presentation, and then go for it. Usually in the evening is when there are lots of different social events. They may be APA events where there's like social hours and like cocktail hour type of things where you can meet people or what happened for us is that my school was hosting an alumni event at a restaurant nearby the conference hotel so things like that you can kind of go and meet people even outside of the conference, but the entire city, wherever you are, is usually flooded with psychologists or professionals in the area of the conference. Aside from actually attending things during the day, at night you can, you know, do social things, explore the city during the day, you can do really whatever you want. So when I went to another conference in Chicago, I spent a lot of time doing sightseeing and exploring and enjoying the city and less time doing conference stuff. This time around, because it's APA and it's such, there were so many talks that I wanted to attend I actually did a lot of conference stuff and I found that everyone that I met had a different approach some people were like oh wow you attended a lot of stuff and other people were like back to back going to different sessions and what's cool is it's really up to you you have the app you can see where you want to be and you just pop in wherever you want you can take notes on the app which is really cool or you can obviously take your own notes there are I think the primary benefit is that you get to be re-energized about the work that you're doing and also if especially for me as a woman of color, like first generation Latinas, seeing other people who look like me there, that inspiration, that connection. There were a lot of great talks. I think this year's theme, I can't remember it, but it seemed to be that there were a lot of presenters of color and a lot of topics related to race and ethnicity and diversity. And that felt good because I felt like there was a lot of presentations that were interesting to me, a lot of people who look like me and a lot of people who didn't look like me, but haven't been well represented in psychology or in academia in general and just seeing that APA was giving them all the opportunity to showcase their work, which they should have been doing a long time ago. By the way, this video is not sponsored by APA. I am an APA student member. It's really important to be part of a professional organization so that you can attend events like this, network with people, and find opportunities. But overall, I think that one of the great things about attending conferences is that it's so independent. You make what you want of it. So I did do a little bit of exploring Minneapolis with Chika, my friend who attended with me, and we were able to balance, right? Like what are the conference things we want to do? What is the amount of rest that we need? Like time at the hotel that we need to just spend relaxing because there's so much happening. And what are the things outside of the conference that we want to do? Are there particular touristy things that we want to do? Are there particular people that we want to meet up with outside of the conference? And in some cases, I mean, you may be attending a conference that is in a city where you have friends or family and so you might want to balance spending time at the conference and seeing them so traveling for conferences has been something that is both really fun really exhausting and slightly different each and every time so whether you attended APA before or not I hope that this recap was somewhat helpful to you and you were able to get an inside look at what it's like to attend these types of conferences and if you are ever at a conference and you happen to see me I hope that you will say hello. One of the greatest pleasures, blessings, gifts of attending conferences this past year has been meeting some of you, meeting people at the conferences or at different talks, having some of you come to my talks. I love finding out that there are GradLife Grind community members at an event that I'm at. I love hearing from you. I love meeting you. I love finding out what your work is in and I love hearing how GradLife Grind has helped you. So it would be the biggest gift and the biggest thank you to like this video, to subscribe to this channel, and to say hello if you ever see me in person. Thank you so much for watching this video and I hope that you will tune in to some others.