{"id":404,"date":"2017-08-29T11:05:18","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T11:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/?p=404"},"modified":"2017-08-29T11:05:18","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T11:05:18","slug":"my-days-as-a-conference-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/2017\/08\/29\/my-days-as-a-conference-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"My Days as a Conference Assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Finnish Society for the Study of English (FINSSE<\/a>) held its eighth biannual conference here in Turku this summer. Having never attended a conference before, I leapt at the opportunity to work as an assistant at the event and get credits for my Master’s internship. I\u2019m glad I did, for The FINSSE-8 conference, “What’s in a Century?”, turned out to be the highlight of my academic year. <\/p>\n

The whole experience was very positive. The organising committee welcomed me with open arms; I was given clear instructions as to what was expected of me and in moments of doubt I could simply ask for help. It soon became clear that organising a conference takes hours and hours of planning and preparation. Even I, a mere assistant, sat through several meetings and wrote countless emails. Those in charge certainly had a lot of work on their hands! Funding, venues, catering, timetables, name tags \u2013 all the meticulous work done in advance resulted in a successful conference. <\/p>\n

During the event I took care of odd jobs here and there: I put up info signs, greeted people at the registration, carried water bottles and whatnot. I dabbled with things that may seem small, but, in the end, helped create a smooth conference experience. I was being useful and I liked it!<\/p>\n

Amidst the work and responsibilities there were fun surprises and major perks. For example, during the first conference day we were treated to a small music number. The memory of conference participants, postgrads and professors alike, swirling around and dancing to the tunes of a violin will probably stay with me forever. Most importantly, though, I got a glimpse into the inner circle of English research in Finland: I felt like a little sponge soaking up knowledge and ideas. I had the opportunity to attend some interesting paper sessions and meet people working in fascinating fields of research \u2013 the conference even provided me with help for my upcoming MA thesis. The research community felt warm and supportive and people seemed to enjoy the conference. I\u2019m lucky I got to be a part of it.<\/p>\n

Text by Lilli Laine<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Finnish Society for the Study of English (FINSSE) held its eighth biannual conference here in Turku this summer. Having never attended a conference before, I leapt at the opportunity to work as an assistant at the event and get … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,31,18],"tags":[13,11],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-special-occasions","category-studies","tag-conferences","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/englishturku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}