Conference Poster.....worth it?

[mdiv2014]

I've been offered to do a poster at a pretty big conference. 

Pros....

- Big name conference

- Unusual topic, sure to draw interest, unconventional and perhaps controversial 

- In my local area so no traveling 

- Gets my name out there (but associated with a somewhat controversial topic/research)

Cons

- Cost/effort of preparing poster

- Poster walk-through is only 1 hour of a 3 day conference (Will it really be noticed? At all?)

 

Questions

Is doing a poster 'a big (or noteworthy) thing?'

Will it be noticed on CV on PhD applications or CV in general? (Keep in mind it's a highly recognizable conference)

The poster thing, anybody been there/done that? Poster stories to share.

[rising_star]

In the humanities, I don't think doing a poster is a very big deal. If it was competitive to get one, that's great. Since it's in your local area, I would probably go ahead and do it. You can make a poster fairly easily using PowerPoint (adjust the size of the slide to match the poster parameters) and you can get it printed for <$50. If you don't have any other presentations or publications on your CV, you should definitely do it.

[peachypie]

Um, definitely do it.  

you get to put it on your CV, a lot of other grad students don't get to put it on a CV.  
It shows you can put together a short presentation, also shows you were accepted to present something, gives you experience.

 

Posters are pretty laid back, even at big conferences.  I did a talk at a big conference and that is a bit bigger of a deal.  I'd do a poster in a heratbeat.  Often it is a great time to talk to other people in the field and you hear/learn interesting things no one is publishing.  Presentations are more removed, less interaction with your field except for an abbreviated Q&A at the end as well as if they come snag you after your talk.  

 

If you can make the trip, I'd highly encourage you to do a poster.  these will be something you do frequently in the future, so why  not get started now.  

[TakeruK]

To address your cons: I think the cost and effort is totally worth it. And 1 hour out of 3 days is pretty typical for poster sessions. This sounds like there is an entire hour dedicated to just posters (usually with beer/wine/snacks in my field) so most participants would actually be present to look at your work! There are some big conferences without any dedicated poster time at all, which means people have to choose to skip talk sessions to see your poster. So, I'd say this is actually not bad.

 

In addition, extra pros:

1. It's a lot easier to talk to people and meet people at the conference if you are also presenting. One of the most common questions (at the conferences I go to, anyways) is "what are you presenting?". I would say that at least half of the usefulness of going to a conference is going to meet people and talk to them, so I hope you are also intending to stay around for the other 3 days too.

2. Having a poster prepared means you have thought about your work a lot and know how to concisely describe it in < 1 minute when meeting a new person. (This is kind of related to point #1 I guess).

3. If you apply for outside funding to help pay for conference costs (maybe just registration, food** and/or poster printing in this case since it's a local meeting), sometimes the requirement is that you are presenting, not merely attending. 

 

(**Note: this probably varies field to field and program to program, but in my field, it's common for conference attendees to get reimbursed for food even if the conference is local because usually hanging out with the visiting people means eating out and spending more on food/drinks than you might normally do if you were not attending a conference [similar to taking a visiting professor out to lunch if they are visiting your department to give a seminar]. But whether or not this is covered depends a lot on the source for the funding you're applying to in this example.)