Workshop reflection

I think the Writing Academic Articles and Getting Published seminar was the most helpful of all the seminars we have had so far. I was somewhat familiar with publishing before that seminar, but the speaker really went in depth with the entire process and what happens at each stage. My sponsor is talking about publishing an article of the results of the experiment I am doing this summer (provided that the results we get are significant) and now I feel a lot less concerned and confused about what publishing entails. I also really liked the speaker's tips for writing an academic paper. I think they will be very useful, especially the one about writing in the active voice to avoid having too long sentences. She recommended some really good books that I want to check out to improve my overall writing, because I am never quite satisfied with my writing and hopefully the advice in these books will help. The most surprising thing I learned at the seminar was that it takes a really long time to get a paper published in the humanities fields. I thought the months scientists usually have to wait to get feedback on their papers was a lot, but it is nothing compared to having to wait a whole year to a year and a half just to find out if you have been accepted, never mind making revisions and edits.
I found the Career Development 101 seminar to be less helpful. A lot of the stuff I already knew, like building a resume and networking. I think we actually had a UROP seminar during the last year that talked about a lot of the same things, so I was kind of disinterested at this seminar to be honest. I felt that way about most of the other seminars too. Like I said, the only really helpful one was the academic writing and publishing seminar. I think seminars that were more specific and took into account what we (the UROP students) actually needed would be more useful. For instance, maybe a poll could be given to the students that asks what they most want to hear and learn about at a seminar, so that way we feel like we are getting the most out of our time at seminar and not just hearing stuff we already know.