This past weekend, I had the pleasure of covering part of the College English Association Middle Atlantic Group’s “Voices and Visions” conference. Today I would like to tell you about the experience.
Simply put, it was quite amazing. While my day was spent recording footage and doing minor errands, it was the parts of the actual conference that I was able to enjoy that made the day an amazing five-hour window into the lives of academics.
Setting up was a fun time, as I watched people enter, I got a taste of who exactly came to these conferences. The number of students and professors from all over the area greatly impressed me, and I was quite surprised to see all manner of casual vs. formal.
The first session, which Dr. Marshall spoke, felt to me like I was watching the journal articles that I’ve researched during my career here. To see the faces behind the thoughts really enlightens one’s whole understanding. Not only that, but I was quite pleasantly pleased with one Dr. Milford Jeremiah’s presentation on the rhetoric of billboards.
It was also worth the trip to see the faces of the listeners as Dr. Marshall explained the nuances of de Sade’s work. He did this while bringing a new understanding that I had not considered when thinking about that infamous writer, though I’m sure the people that took Dr. Marshall’s topics class on the subject learned quite a lot more than I did that day. I’m not sure whether to feel bad for missing out, or pity them for the beating their psyche took balancing the graphic imagery and the poetics enlighten by their professor.
By far my favorite part was during my time in the pavilion. The keynote speaker, Andy Duncan, presented a piece on Science Fiction that took my appreciation for the genre to a whole new level. But that wasn’t the most fulfilling part of the day.
The lunch was the most enlightening experience I had. Not only was the food good (believe me, it was), but I was able to talk, and to listen to, graduate students networking and discussing their studies with their peers. To see that kind of support amongst students really got me happy to have gone to such an event.
Of course, when I left, I got one golden piece of advice from Dr. Jeremiah, who thanked me for helping him get his flash card set up. “Never miss an opportunity to network.”
Let that be a lesson to anyone reading. If you want to get into grad school or find yourself a job, make sure you network!
Keep looking here for more information about the event in the coming posts.
-–Stephen Carnaggio, Media Intern, English Department