I remember being a young grad student and being like "oh GOD how am I going to talk for that long?!" when faced with conference presentations and now, here I am, a wizened veteran, bemoaning the struggle of only having 15 minutes to tell my story.
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I have so much I have to tell you and so little time. I love taking you on little winding side-journeys and stories-within-stories. And now I have to be efficient. Curses.
Hahaha, when the “what could I talk for half an hour about without notes?” challenge becomes the “what could I talk about for *only* half an hour?” challenge. 🤣
Yes this but with papers. The 2000 word essay seemed impossible to write when I was 19 and when I was 25 it was also impossible but because I couldn’t figure out what to cut
I remember feeling this way about writing a thesis. "How am I going to write a small book about my work?!" Fast forward another 5 years and I was shocked it was over 500 pages once completed for my defense.
Seven years after that defense, its still crazy to think about the whole experience.
My first one: "oh my GOD. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TALK FOR 20 MINUTES?!"
My viva: "I genuinely don't understand how I'm supposed to get all this in 10 minutes?"
This!! It's the hardest thing about being a postdoc for me so far (other than job hunting 🥲). It's really hard to condense multiple papers of work into short talks, and is taking some practice to get right.
Yes! This is why (even though I recognize it's probably a valuable skill to be brief and pithy) I hate doing 5-minute talks and when given the opportunity I'll always choose the full-length ones.
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Seven years after that defense, its still crazy to think about the whole experience.
My viva: "I genuinely don't understand how I'm supposed to get all this in 10 minutes?"