How are grad students able to travel to conferences, subscribe to journals?

[egFace]

Hello,

 

I am a new PhD student in an animal behavior program (psychology). I was wondering how I am expected to financially manage traveling to conferences and subscribing to academic journals. For example, I want to attend SfN in DC, but I am in NYC. How am I , a grad student who is making just enough to live, expected to pay for airfare, hotel, etc.? Also, I would like to subscribe to relevant journals, but again, it's a money issue. How do PhD students normally manage such things?

 

Thanks!

[fuzzylogician]

Your university should have subscriptions to the relevant journals in your field.

 

As for travel, this is something you should have probably inquired about before accepting your admissions offer, but in general travel funding is completely at the discretion of the program you attend. Most programs have some kind of travel funding they assign to students but the amount and structure of the funding can vary greatly. Common structures include: (a) everything is covered by your PI always (common in rich science fields with lots of grant money); (b ) you are allotted a certain amount of money for travel that you can use at your discretion (amounts vary greatly, and you need to use it wisely so you still have money to travel in later years right before you go on the job market). (c ) you can receive at most X amount of dollars per year, sometimes at your discretion, sometimes only for a single trip so even if you don't use the whole amount on one trip, you can't use it later that year for another trip. (d) you need to apply to some university-central fund that may choose to fund you, at its discretion. You normally need to apply before traveling, or if you do it afterwards there is a chance you won't get reimbursed. (e) there is little or no funding. You need to apply for external funding for each and every trip. 

 

Grad students often need to find ways to reduce the cost of travel because, unless you're very lucky, funding is limited and you need to watch your spending. If the issue is going from NYC to DC, you're in luck. That's usually doable. You take the bus, you find a way to crash with a grad student (email the conference organizers about this, it almost always works out!) or you share a cheap room with another student, you eat frugally. It's still expensive, so there is a limit to how much you can do this, but it's much better than needing to go to the West Coast or Europe.

 

Also -- note that I deleted the post you made in another Grad School Life subforum. There is no need to cross-post the same question multiple times.

[geographyrocks]

Fuzzy covered most of it, but conferences will also often offer some funding for students to attend.  Make sure to go to the conference website and check everywhere. 

[TakeruK]

I'm luckily in a "rich science field" so all of my travel and related expenses are paid for by my supervisor as it's basically a "business trip" since I am presenting work on behalf of my research group. However, sometimes, science grad students also need external funding because you've just started a new grad program and you want to attend a conference but have nothing to present or you want to present work you did at your previous school and your previous supervisor does not have money for former students or your current project is not funded by a grant or the trip is really far away so that it's too expensive without external funding. I've been in many of these cases before and everything fuzzy suggested is excellent!

 

One thing that all grad students generally have to pay out of pocket is membership in their discipline's national society though (e.g. for me, it's the American Astronomical Society). They usually have discounted rates for students and new members but I'd budget around $50-$100 per year to cover this. Sometimes conferences hosted by these societies are the main one for your field and you must be a member to present. But more often, these societies actually offer travel awards to their own meetings as well as other meetings, so that's another way to be eligible for some external funding!

[GeoDUDE!]

What Takeruk said..... if you are presenting research that is funded by a grant... the grant should have money for you to go to a conference and present it and eventually publish it. I think it would be very hard to get a grant funded if there wasn't money allocated for that expenditure, which most scientists think crucial to the scientific method. 

[Eigen]

Also check grad associations at your school. I just finished processing about 30 $200-$500 grants for grad students for SfN.

In general though, traveling if you don't have results to present is hard to find funding for.

[TakeruK]

Also check grad associations at your school. I just finished processing about 30 $200-$500 grants for grad students for SfN.

In general though, traveling if you don't have results to present is hard to find funding for.

 

This is generally true, but that said, my department has a travel grant award specifically for first year grad students who might not have completed enough research to present but would still benefit from the experience of a big conference! You'll be eligible for a lot more if you have stuff to present but it's not hopeless if you don't have anything!

[Eigen]

Yeah, we fund people who are just attending with small grants too. 

 

It's not all that usual from looking around though, and certainly not large amounts. 

[TakeruK]

Oh, I almost forgot -- sometimes you can earn free conference registration if you volunteer to work at the registration booth / setting up / audio-visual etc for the conference. You can find this information through the conference website usually.

[juilletmercredi]

Well, there are three main ways.

 

Some funding packages come with travel funds attached.  My training grant in my first two years came with a pretty sweet travel budget ($1300 a year) and my training grant in my last year had a decent one too ($1000 a year).  That was enough to go to one conference, or two close-by conferences if flights were not involved.  The best part about travel funds is that you can go regardless of whether or not you are presenting.

 

In other cases, your department may have a travel budget from which you can pull funds.  Both of my departments had the opportunity for graduate students to apply for a small amount of funds ($500) to support conference travel.  However, you had to be presenting in order to get this money.  Second of all, they were reimbursements, not up front costs.  My primary department drove me completely nuts because 1) they required a ridiculous number of receipts, including the boarding passes from my flight which they did NOT apprise me of before I went on the trip - who saves boarding passes unless they know they have to?  And they wouldn't accept just the damn receipt, because apparently people buy plane tickets and then don't go...except they totally don't and 2) they took 8-12 weeks to reimburse you, which is just too long for me to be out of $500.  Needless to say I didn't deal with them much after the first time I got a travel award.

 

And three...some grad students pay their own way.  I personally refused, because as you said I was barely making enough to live and I believe that paying for conference travel is something that departments should do, since it's a professional requirement.  Of course, this is a personal choice, and in some fields this can hurt you (my field cares less about conference presentations than papers, so I focused my energies on publishing).  I did sometimes have to supplement outside awards with my own funds, as $500 is not enough money to go to a conference that involves a flight - the flight alone eats up at least 50% of that.  I only did this if the only things I would have to pay for out of pocket was food, because I would have to pay for that anyway at home.  Sometimes your PI can subsidize your travel with his/her grant funding.  My PI has done this before but usually as a supplement to outside travel funds.

 

Many conferences/associations also offer travel scholarships to students who are presenting.  They are competitive, but I have found that they are not difficult to get if you apply early.  Volunteering also gives you free conference registration like TakeruK said, but you usually need to arrange that pretty far in advance.  I think the volunteering announcements usually go up shortly after the call for papers, or 3-4 months before the conference actually happens, and they fill up quick for the popular conferences.  Still, you should try it, as that can save you anywhere from $50-150+ depending on how expensive conference registration is.

 

As a result, I have far fewer conference presentations on my CV than do most graduate students, but I don't really care.

 

I agree that you gotta find ways to reduce costs.  The Greyhound from NYC to DC is about $50; that's how I usually got to DC for conferences.  Amtrak is more comfortable but also more expensive (I did that once when someone else was covering it!)  Crash with another grad student friend or acquaintance, or see if any DC-area universities offer cheap conference housing to students (some universities do this).  Or see if anyone else who is going wants to share a room - often these societies have listings for grad students and you can email each other to find roommates.  When I was in grad school we grouped up in rooms and had grade-school level sleepovers to afford hotel rooms, lmao.

 

I hate hate hate traveling for conferences, for just this reason.  I am so philosophically opposed to paying for this out of my pocket because it's only something I do for professional benefit, and yet I always end up spending at least a little of my own money on conferences.  And conferences are just so pointless to me anyway.  I network, meet interesting people and see awesome presentations usually, but they're so overwhelming and odd academic rituals.  UGH.  That's why I tend to concentrate on the smaller professional conferences (<3,000 attendees) and stalk interesting people.

[TakeruK]

Volunteering also gives you free conference registration like TakeruK said, but you usually need to arrange that pretty far in advance.  I think the volunteering announcements usually go up shortly after the call for papers, or 3-4 months before the conference actually happens, and they fill up quick for the popular conferences.

 

I don't know how universal this is, but the annual meeting of the national Society for my fields tend to require you to submit abstracts 3-4 months in advance and sign up for the volunteering at this time too. However, the cheapest "early bird" registration rate usually lasts for about a week after abstracts are due and "normal" registration deadline is not until a month or so before the conference start. For the student rate, the normal registration fee is usually only $10-$20 more than the "early bird" rate. 

 

So, if this is the case in your field, you can also often submit your abstract and sign up for volunteering and then you have about 1 or 2 months to arrange all of your funding before having to commit to paying the registration fee, hotel booking, flights etc.

 

That's why I tend to concentrate on the smaller professional conferences (<3,000 attendees) and stalk interesting people.

3000 is small??! The "big" meeting in my field is about a couple of thousand, and the main meeting for my subfield is about 1000! I also enjoy small conferences (but this means 150-200 people to me) because then there's actually time and space to meet with most of the conference people

[rising_star]

In addition to the grad student association and your department, you might also want to look into various centers and institutes on campus. Some of those have travel grants available for grad students. While the amount may be small (like $200-500), if you get several small grants, you'll have enough money to go to the conference.

 

The other thing to think about it is how to save money once you get there. At conferences, I rarely eat breakfast in a restaurant. I usually go to the store before the trip (or to a grocery store or farmer's market near my hotel, depending on the situation) and buy fresh fruit, granola or granola bars, and some nuts to eat and snack on. This ends up saving me a bunch of money overall.

 

And for NYC to DC, definitely don't fly. Take Greyhound, Megabus, etc., or Amtrak. It'll be less expensive (well, Acela trains won't be) and a lot less hassle (no TSA and the need to arrive 90 minutes before your flight).