I saw an announcement recently for a conference I would like to go to. I am planning on applying to give a talk, but will do so without high expectations of being accepted to give one. I have not been invited to give talks at conferences. Nor have any of my applications to give talks at conferences ever been accepted. This worries me. As a postdoc I must not only publish (or perish) but I have to advertise my work. Conferences are a great way to do this but I can't get my damn foot in the door.
Okay, I just realized that I lied. I have been invited to give one talk at a conference. It wasn't even in my field though and they wanted me to be a part of a "Promising Young Minority Scientists" session or some crap like that. And they weren't even willing to pay to fly me across the country. Seriously? I said no. Why? Don't get me wrong. I appreciate what they were trying to do, which I assume is help young minority scientists like myself gain visibility. But how is my giving a talk about my research during a conference that is only remotely related to my scientific field going to help me in my career? Maybe if the purpose of the whole conference was to seek ways to increase the number and retention of women and minorities in the physical sciences while having some young women and minority scientists come in and give their views in a panel, I would have considered it. But asking me to give a scientific talk during a session that wasn't centered on science for a conference that wasn't even in my field seemed silly.
The fact that I have only been asked to give a talk because of my race/gender is disheartening, but I have hope that I will be asked/accepted to give a talk at a conference one day because of my research. I have a good number of papers that are well-cited. Hopefully, it's just a matter of time. I also try not to be too hard on myself and realize that part of it is politics. I have had friends on the talk selection committees that said they really pulled for me, but X and Y banded together in their votes to get their former students talks, etc.
So maybe I'll get a talk at this conference I just heard about. Maybe not. In any event, I worked my ass off to get where I am today, and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon!
I think most people want to be recognized for their work and not for their gender or race, but let's keep it real here. White males aren't recognized for their work either because it's about who they know. Does hard work get rewarded? Sometimes. Does networking pay off? More often than not. 80% of jobs are gotten because of a network tie, which means that the other 20% are happening because of hard work. So get out there and know some people (not in the biblical sense of course)! A great way to do that is to comment on the conversation threads in LinkedIn.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Plum. Networking is the only benefit of a conference like that. But it seems weird to have a conference and be invited for the colour of your skin and not the quality of the science. Can you imagine a conference, entitled, "Promising Young White Male Scientists" - Oh wait. That's every fucking conference.
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