This year on the EGU General Assembly blog there will be guest posts from participants about their research and their impressions of sessions. These are personal points of view not EGU corporate views. If you would like to contribute a research or session viewpoint, please email us.
This perspective from the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2011 is from Marianne Corvellec a PhD student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon. She presented her research in NP8.1 Stochastic Approaches for Multiscale Modelling in Geosciences
First time experiences at EGU GA 2011
I am taking this opportunity to share my experience at EGU 2011. I am a PhD student in Physics, and this is my first time at EGU. I am thankful for my advisor who suggested right on time that I submit an abstract for EGU 2011 –which I did on the very deadline day. I was not used to having an impressive audience –with many big names and many unknown faces, I mean. I was not used to very strict timing instructions either, but it felt like it went well. I haven’t had the chance/time to catch up with everyone who asked me questions after the talk. The General Assembly is so huge and busy. I am not too frustrated about it, because I think that, once back home, I can recover who is who, who works on what, using the online programme. At the EGU General Assembly, anyway, you should never think in terms of what you are missing out on: the answer is inexorably TONS. I can tell just from browsing the EGUToday editions. So I decided to focus on my session; I appreciated very much the talks being short and self-contained. At the General Assembly, you get to meet people you know but don’t get to see very often, people you know by name, new people –sorry, they’re called Young Scientists. So I’m experiencing the usual adrenaline rush you get at conferences, as you (try and) tell about your (more or less solitary) work, as some elements start to make more sense because you’re giving them context and motivations, in your explanation effort. Well, at some point you just can’t wait to go back home, and try computing/writing what you’ve been brought to think about. In the mean time, I enjoy the socializing and networking; I haven’t done anything cultural/touristy in Vienna, really, but I think I very much like this city –let me mention that I find it incredibly affordable. Hopefully this statement will not cause the Vienna ‘stocks’ to go up. To be honest, I am not too fond of the venue; I think the poster area is too air-conditioned, and some rooms are too dark. But the conference assistants are doing a great job in their yellow T-shirts; you can always ask for some help in German or English. All in all, I am leaving EGU gA 2011 tired but energized. Don’t you know what I mean? Come over next year!
