One of the common things about being a post-graduate student
is that you have to prepare a paper and present it at academic
conference, where it'll be attended by many other super-genius Prof
who's waiting eagerly to bombard you with bombastic question that you
can never think of!. Pretty exaggerated explanation,
yeah I know....but somehow that was what on my mind whenever I had to
attend any academic conference * not that I've attended many so far*.
I
wasn't required to attend any conference while I was doing my master
because it was course-work based where I only had to attend classes,
pass my exams, complete the final thesis writing and present it during
viva. That's all I had to do to get my M.Sc in Mechanical Engineering
(majoring in Aeronautics and Space Technology).
As for getting my "Dr" title, my supervisor told me that I have to attend at least
2 conferences to present 2 papers and submit 1 peer reviewed journal in
order to complete my PhD study. *I highlighted the word "at least" in
case you didn't noticed it*. As you know in PhD, it all depends on your
SV. One of my friend even graduated his PhD without having the need to
attend any conference to present his paper; but he has to spend lots of
time doing experiments.
As I told you in the entry Perumpaan cuti sekolah dan SPM dalam kehidupan; I've attended academic conference here in Fukuoka last Monday. When many of my friends are happy to go all around the globe to attend conference, my SV loves me so much that he can't bear to miss me if I went to a conference in other countries so Fukuoka it is * nevertheless I'm thankful for that as I don't have to be bother about leaving SN if I had to go to other foreign country*.
Although this is an international conference, most if the participants are from Kyushu University. There were 9 scopes covered in this conference which are (1) Urban environment, (2) Low carbon society, (3) Food risk and assessment, (4) Aqueous environment and hydrology, (5) Deserti cation prevention, (6) Atmospheric environment, (7) Marine environment, (8) Environmental chemistry and (9) Environmental planning and management.
I was assigned as the 2nd speaker in the Atmospheric Environment slot. My co-SV was the 1st speaker and my lab mates was the 3rd and 4th speakers. Only the 5th speaker is from other laboratory. So it made me feels less nervous compared to the first symposium I've attended earlier this year ( symposium) because I can see familiar faces around me.
15 minutes were allocated for the presentation while 5 minutes were allocated for Q&A session. I prepared 50 slides and able to finish presenting all the slides within that allocated time. Phew...can you imagine how fast do I speak when I'm super nervous...that my friend is equal to 18 seconds per slide.
15 minutes surely feels long when you are required to talk about academic stuff but it seems less shorter if you spend 15 minutes to talk about gossips, fashions or some other laghaaa stuff .
+- 12th minutes: 1 ting bell, 15th minutes : 2 tings sounds, 20th minutes: times over - 3 tings sounds -+
+- tengah kelentong pung pang pung pang -+
5 minutes for Q & A sessions do feels lot longer than those 15 minutes as you have to prepare yourself to be killed in front of others *literally*. I was asked 4 questions and to be honest I didn't really understand the first question but I just hentam and give the Prof whatever answer that I have in my mind. I could see that he's not satisfied with my answers but hey who cares, next questions please! hahahaha.
Alhamdulillah, with Allah's help I was able to answer the other 3 questions better than my first question. Only Allah knows how relieved I am when I heard the ting ting ting sounds from the timekeeper. That's it folks, no more questions..lega already.
After that, I sit down behind my co-SV and both of us pretend like we were listening to my lab-mates presentation when we were actually checking out mails, surfing the nets and of course updating status at FB .
I guess that's what others were doing when I'm presenting too. Damn, I shouldn't have been nervous if I knew that earlier.
At the end of the day, my SV was satisfied with our presentations, so that's all what matter. He even continued on the discussions with the Prof who seems to be interested into our papers and asked the 4 of us questions during our presentation.
We took group photos before leaving the conference room. Note that in the picture I look short despite my 164cm height. I shouldn't be standing in the middle, I guess it's optical illusion kot..reality is I'm not that short, really *tak sedar diri pendek*.
+- from left: Takahas*hi-kun, co-SV Assoc. Prof Uchi*da, your truly, SV Prof Oh*ya and Nakamu*ra-kun -+
Also, do you noticed that in both pictures my SV and I have the same pose i.e. broad smile showing teethes and fake smile for formal pictures. Yeah....we are sweet like that, selalu nak sehati sejiwa gitu eheh.
Pssstt : My next conference will be in Malaysia and my SV would be attending it as well, kan I dah cakap..my SV memang sangat understanding. Dia bagi I pergi conference yang I tak perlu susah payah tinggalkan SN.
~ Thanks for reading this (^-*) ~