On Saturday, February 18, 2023, I attended my first conference. The conference I attended was for the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE) entitled the North Eastern Regional Conference (NERC) held in Boston, Massachusetts. This conference allowed me to talk with various companies and network with other SASE chapter members in my region. The morning before the conference, Friday, February 17, 2023, the SASE members attending the conference met up to take the Long Island Railroad together to Penn Station. Upon arriving in New York City, my group took GreyHound bussing to Boston. Right across the bus station in Boston was ChinaTown so we were able to explore and eat lunch before checking-in at our hotel, Sheraton.
Saturday was the day of the conference where I was able to network with various other students also part of SASE and talk to the companies that attended along with two universities. The companies that attended included the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), British Aerospace (BAE) Systems, General Electric (GE), Procter & Gamble (P&G), National Grid, and the two universities included Clarkson University and Lehigh University. Additionally, I attended three breakout sessions- “Determine Your Drive For Motivation When Confronted With Challenges or Failure”, “Empowering and Engaging With Your Student Body: Student Leadership Panel”, and “Life After School Networking”. I found these workshops to be very engaging and informative, especially the first two. The first one gave inspiration as to what to do when you feel burned out or lacking motivation and the second workshop gave ideas for having a closer relationship within your SASE chapter whether it be between executive board members or within the club itself. During the lunch break, two games were played to connect members and later in the day I attended a resume review with the CIA.
After the conference ended, a few members from my SASE chapter including myself went ice skating along with exploring parts of Boston with students from another SASE chapter- NorthEastern University. This was a great opportunity to bond and network with another SASE chapter. That night we also got dinner and celebrated a successful NERC experience.
Sunday afternoon we left back to Stony Brook University after eating lunch in
ChinaTown. I had such an amazing time being able to meet and talk with so many people along
with being able to grow closer with my own SASE chapter. This was such a great experience for
me as I can use what I learned from this conference for the next conference I attend. I am very
thankful for the AAPI Mentorship Program for funding me to attend my first conference and
would strongly recommend anyone to this great program.