This pandemic has been a terrible tragedy on so many levels. The awful toll in terms of lives lost, livelihoods destroyed, and permanent losses of health has been immense and sobering.
Yet humans are a hardy bunch, and the ways that we are coping are instructive. One thing I’ve noticed, as an academic, is that I am giving a lot more invited talks, and I am also inviting a lot more luminaries to give invited talks to our lab.
In a world where Zoom is the norm, “visiting” does not require flights, hotel rooms or meal expenses. You can simply invite somebody to your lab to give a talk, and they will usually say yes.
I’ve started a practice of inviting very high powered people to give talks to our students, and then to hang out afterward for Q&A. People who would formerly have been far too busy are saying yes.
Our students are benefitting from this. Mentorships are starting and connections are being forged that would probably not have happened in normal times.
Of course none of this begins to compensate for the enormous tragedy of the COVID pandemic. But perhaps it shows that even through the darkest of clouds, you may find a ray of sunlight.
Let’s take all the silver linings we can get in this epic disaster! I’ve found some myself and I’m grateful for them.
It’ll be interesting to see what the ultimate impact on the travel & hospitality is. You’re describing a whole class of students likely to question the value of traveling to conferences.
Yes, maybe it’s good that we rethink conferences. Rather than simply taking them for granted, we should be asking how we can make the conference experience truly worthwhile.