During this second year of my PhD, I’ve started presenting at academic conferences and seminars. The purpose of both these activities is for presenters like me to share their ideas and work, garner feedback, and build relationships with other people in the field. They can be extremely nerve-wracking, but also a lot of fun. In pre-COVID times, it was great to attend events like this and meet up with people in person. Often enough, it was the only time you’d see certain people all year. With COVID, we’ve lost that in-person connection as academic conferences and seminars have moved online. But, the online format has its advantages, and is certainly helpful from an equalizing access standpoint. It also means a lot more people can attend events like this at any given time.
I think there’s a difference between presenting at an academic conference vs. a seminar, so here I am just going to stick to talking about seminars. Academic seminars are a great venue for presenting and discussing your research because they are often a more intimate setting and there are fewer speakers, which means the audience can focus more on you. That’s helpful because you often gain more feedback than with a conference panel and you can spend more time having in-depth conversations with the audience. As a presenter, it’s fantastic.
This past week, I presented a paper I’m hoping to turn into an academic journal article at one of the LSE Department of International History’s research seminars, which is my home department. Even though I knew a lot of the people who were going to attend, that paradoxically increased my nervousness. As part of the seminar, I was asked to speak for 20-25 minutes about my paper, which was the longest I’ve spoken in this type of setting up until now. Speaking for 10 minutes is much different from speaking for 20-25, and I was nervous about that too. On the day of the seminar, over 50 people attended, which was way more than I was expecting. But after I gave my talk, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. It was over, and it was time to move onto questions. I received some great queries and we had a wonderful discussion about my paper. I was very worried I hadn’t done a great job with my presentation, but the feedback I received indicated otherwise, and I was heartened to hear so many people enjoyed my talk. On the whole, it was an excellent experience.
If you’re reading this and in the midst of a PhD, keep it mind the value you can receive presenting at a research seminar. It can usually help prepare you for conferences, and it’s an awesome way to get feedback on your ideas and research.
