Reflections on the NeuroEngineering Symposium: Notes for Future Planning

For reference for future NETI event planners.


Reflections on the Neuroengineering Symposium

Every time we hold seminars/symposia etc, we learn from it. These are
some things I think I would suggest to anyone else trying to set up
something like this:

-- Start early. It took several weeks to even get a response from faculty

-- email secretaries, or other faculty. For instance, it took Dr.
Thakor to push on Dr. Geocadin to respond. Other faculty go primarily
through their secretaries, and don't seem to answer personal emails
from random phd students.

-- pick a date(s) and go with it. I tried asking people when would
work for them, and it was a mess. Finally I chose two dates, and
asked people to pick what worked. Unfortunately, I think the first
date was too close in time and people didnt choose to present then.
Also, it was the last week in August, and it seemed like many faculty
were busy/out of town.

-- email often. goes back to starting early, but it wasn't until my
4th or 5th email invitation to get responses from some people. It
might be annoying to receive so many emails, but if you send a nice
polite invitation, I think people are receptive. I also included a
schedule that included who else was speaking, and the flier, though I
don't know how many people looked at that. Maybe a web link to the
flyer as opposed to an attachment would be the way to go. I don't
know if that helped in encouraging them to present, but maybe

-- Some people contacted me just days before the event saying they
wanted to present. I don't really know how best to deal with this. I
thought the whole thing would be a failure until a week beforehand.

-- 3 hours is too long. I knew that, and Dr. Thakor advised against
it, but I did it anyways, because it would have been too much of a
hassle to organize a third date last minute, and I do think it is
useful for students to see these people before the semester gets under
way full force. Even though there were only like 6 students there by
the end, even if only one student finds an opportunity or idea for
research that they otherwise would not have, I think it is worth it
--- that's what I tell myself anyways :-)

--Students have to decide rotations by mid September, and the more
they see early on the better. Ideally we would have had 4 speakers on
each day, but I would recommend to have the seminars like we did,
late-Aug early Sept.

-- Tell a speaker they have 15 minutes, they take 30. I advised them
to make presentations 15-20 minutes, but they would gladly talk
forever. I'd recommend telling them to make 10 minute presentations,
with clearer instructions on the nature of the talk (NOT data
intensive). Tell them 10 minutes, but schedule 20 minutes.

-- if you are in charge, keep them to their time limits. It's tough
because you don't want to sound rude. Tell them beforehand that
you'll give them a couple minute warning, and stop them after that and
make sure people have time to ask questions. I still wish we had been
able to take more time for student-faculty discussion.

-- make sure you schedule the room before you schedule the symposium.
Luckily I was able to do it the other way around, but that could have
been bad.

-- have a laptop available for people to put their presentation, and
have a laser pointer for them to use

-- try to get presentation titles and abstracts. I didn't, but in
retrospect it would have been nice to have for reference.

-- any other suggestions? please add to the list. we could maybe
give this to future planners of NETI events.

--luke