By Ariana Gunderson and Gaya Morris

We returned from the 2022 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Seattle with our notebooks full of reflections and ideas for next time. Here are our notes to self for this year’s annual meeting, which might be of interest to you for your first AAA!

• Apply widely for travel grants – your department, other units on campus, sections within AAA, or other academic institutions might all be offering travel grants. Let’s get that bread!

• If you are presenting, finish your paper before you arrive. Don’t feel tempted to endlessly tinker and miss out on the conference – run it through once in your hotel room and set it aside. Then you can present at your panel, take notes through the Q&A, and relax the rest of the conference.
  • One way to feel confident in your paper before you go is to practice presenting at your home department the week before. IU Anthropology organized an open practice session for folks presenting at AAA where we got excellent feedback from our colleagues and faculty, and we had plenty of time to polish our papers before the plane took off. Try to set this up at your department if you can, and if a formal gathering doesn’t work out, try practicing your talk (paper printed, slides behind you) in front of a small group of friends.
  • Nervous for the Q&A? Prepare your answers to anticipated questions – tack on a page of bullet points to your paper of outlining how you would answer a short list of questions you think you might be asked. Think about what else you would say if you had more time, maybe the sections you cut out of your paper and how those points might fit questions people could ask. Just remember that you shouldn’t look down at a paper when answering a question.
  • Wondering whether you should read from a paper or speak extemporaneously? As we anticipated, most presenters at the AAA read their papers (this also varies by subfield). Younger scholars often had slides in the background with images and minimal text. Just remember to look up at your audience every couple of sentences and to speak at an understandable pace.

• Have a schedule planned ahead. The AAA website schedule was extremely difficult to navigate, and there are so many panels and events it can be difficult to choose at the last minute. Your sections might send around a schedule of their panels and events, and you can look through the schedule at leisure beforehand. Copy out the events and panels you’re considering for a slot, print out two copies, and you won’t have to tangle with the dreaded AAA website.

• Rest for at least one session per day. The events at AAA run from 7am to 11:30pm, so be sure to take time to rest, lie down, and enjoy being offstage for a bit.

• Section activities can be the best part of AAA – the forty or so sections of AAA will often host a business meeting (usually open to anyone) where they announce awards and give updates on the section, a board meeting (usually open only to the board), a lecture or talk by a distinguished scholar, and/or a reception (usually open to anyone – it will say on the schedule if it’s open to members only). These receptions might have food or drink or entertainment, and these are excellent networking spaces (bring business cards – you can get them from VistaPrint for cheap, or possibly from your university for free). Meet fellow graduate students or faculty with shared interests, and if you feel up to it, sign up to support your section as student rep, a reader for an awards committee, or some other junior board role. You can join a section on the AAA website when you sign up for general membership.

• There are many ways to approach attending other panels. Explore your first few times at AAA to find a pattern that works for you. You might go to panels to support your collaborators, friends, mentors, or people you want to meet. Go to some panels on topics that you have already thought a bit about, and maybe one or two on topics that you haven’t thought much about yet. Some panels at AAA are pre-organized around a theme, and others are assembled more or less haphazardly from the papers submitted on their own. The pre-organized panels tend to be more rewarding and coherent, and you’ll find that some folks organize excellent panels year after year – remember them for the next AAA! You may be disappointed by some panels and surprisingly inspired by others. Either way, you will be able to learn by observing what works and doesn’t work in a variety of different presentation styles.
  • You can make connections by speaking with the panelists after. In our experience, panelists are often eager to talk more about their work after presenting a super-condensed version of it in 15 minutes. Don’t be shy to introduce yourself and ask a question. Just be aware the panelists are often trying to organize going out together after, so you don’t want to hold anyone up too long.

• Schedule meetings with scholars from other universities. These can be folks whose work you admire or potential collaborators or mentors. Send them an email 2-4 weeks before the conference asking to meet up, and put them onto your pre-planned schedule! Come to the meeting with familiarity with their work and a few questions. Ariana found two meetings to be rewarding without being overwhelming, but she might aim for three next year.

• If you can swing it funding-wise, staying at the conference hotel has significant convenience. You won’t need to lug a coat around, you can pop back to your room for a quick snack, nap, or change, and you’ll be able to sleep in an extra ten minutes before that 7am board meeting. Save money by splitting the room with fellow grad students.

• Bring snacks or buy them the first day you get to the conference. It’ll save you time, money, and worry if you don’t have to go find a restaurant nearby for every meal.

• Many events will have alcohol for free or for purchase. Have fun but pace yourself; remember this is a professional event and you’ve got looooong days ahead of you. (If you are planning an event at AAA, consider not offering alcohol for free; Gretchen Sneegas wrote an excellent article on alcohol at academic events that explains why.)

• Lean on your groupchat! All the IU students attending AAA made a whatsapp group for the conference where we planned meetups, asked questions, and shared events we planned to attend.

• Try to go to the Book Exhibit in the last hour or two it’s open – many booths will be selling their books at a steep discount or even giving them away for free at this time!

• Find time for at least one non-conference activity during your time there. In Seattle’s 2022 AAA conference, Ariana ate her way around Pike Place and Gaya saw a musical with a friend in town – and both of us are so glad we stepped out of the conference bubble even for a few hours.

• When you get home, follow up with thank you emails! Send follow-ups to people you met with, presented with, connected with, to sections that gave you awards or institutions that gave you travel grants, and to people you’d like to see at next year’s AAA. A quick thank you goes a long way!

• Think of your first visits to AAA as a chance to find your own style. There are lots of different ways to approach conferences – with a focus on the panels, the section events, sightseeing, or making new friends. Try out an approach you like the sound of and reflect on what you would do differently the next year. AAA is also a chance to find your own approach to that dreaded obligation called networking. Think of it less as performing your most intelligent self and more like expressing curiosity about other people and their work. They will be excited to talk about it, and to talk about your work, too!

Gaya’s sketched memories from the 2022 AAA Annual Meeting in Seattle.