A talk at a conference

“Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this it's a sin if you don't reach back... I'm telling you.”  - Mathew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook    



    With my undergraduate years coming to an end, I have to admit to reminiscing over all the hard/good times I've spent over the past few years that seem like forever. Regardless of all that, nothing beats the great opportunities I was given before wrapping up my undergrad years. Never did I imagine myself standing in front of a crowd of professionals and talking about what I have done with my group. That was a moment beyond what I had in mind, never did it cross my mind whatsoever.

    As we started wrapping up our final senior project, our adviser got us hooked up with various conferences that seemed too off bound to us, little did we know that he was opening doors to those well-known "once-in-a-lifetime" experiences.  It was sometime during October that we began really working on submitting our work for the IEEE EDUCON 2016 conference, it didn't seem like a big deal then, but our adviser insisted that we join , he must've been very satisfied with our work, that felt good considering all the hardships we faced to bring it about. The conference was scheduled sometime at the beginning of April, that was a long time from October, so we didn't really care much about it. 

    The months passed and the semester was over, before we knew it, it was finally April, and it was presentation day. The entire day was like a dream, I ended being the one everyone wanted to present. My adviser, and my group of friends, threw it all on me. I personally have no problem working out a presentation, but on such a huge event , that was a burden I did not know and did not think I could handle. At work, things began to get serious, that wasn't the time for them to get serious because it was time for the conference, at the last minute I was going to cancel and not present. Now that was not planned, was it work first or the hard work I put in since October or maybe months behind? At that time I did not know what to do, eventually I ended up doing the presentation because I basically had no choice whatsoever. How was it? I don't really remember.

    All I remember was the dim lights and very calm room, a group of what? 10 people maybe? All of whom were way to experience than my little child-like being standing in front of them. "Don't be too technical, remember they are not me" Nothing pressured me more than that one phrase my adviser always told me before every presentation, how was I going to make it simple? I did not want to waste my time presenting talking about something the audience had no idea what I was saying, but that was the fun of it. It's always a challenge trying to talk outside the box and present your work from multiple points of view. I found that really nice, poor German guy presenting before me. I did not know how/when he started talking because as he walked his way through his presentation, nothing seemed to make sense,  but it was good of him to successfully make it till the end because that's when I was up next, maybe that's the reason I had no idea what he was talking about...probably. 

    When it was time to present, it was one of those times where you have no idea what's going on, what you're saying or what you're doing, it was simply great. The environment and atmosphere were very encouraging and from the intensive looks I got from the audience, I think I did a great job having them pay attention to my presentation, I have no idea how or why they bothered to actually show interest, that was fascinating really. The feedback afterwards was not expected, it was simply positive and it made me feel really good about myself and I just thought "Yes! I think I did a great job delivering the objectives out of the box", it was a challenge but a very warm one.

    If it weren't for my adviser I wouldn't of got the chance to experience what it was like to be part of an international conference where my I was literally the very only local presenter presenting. That was just huge,  it felt like I had to change what everyone had engraved about my people, we are not incapable people when it comes to academics and we really exist, it's the least we can do to give back and I was really satisfied with myself when I was given the chance to give back and change a whole image about us. 

To my one and only advisor, thank you.