{"id":447,"date":"2017-09-12T14:10:46","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T13:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/?p=447"},"modified":"2024-02-24T21:09:19","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T20:09:19","slug":"how-to-tackle-an-ata-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/how-to-tackle-an-ata-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Tackle an ATA Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"People<\/p>\n

By Natalie Mainland<\/p>\n

Photo from Unsplash by Daria Shevtsova<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s that time of year again! We\u2019ve come back from vacation, summer is drawing to a close, and translators across the country are wondering, \u201cShould I go to the ATA conference this year?\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve never been, and you\u2019re on the fence, perhaps my experience as a newcomer to last year\u2019s conference can shed some light on it for you.<\/p>\n

I have to admit, I wasn\u2019t sure about attending the 2016 ATA conference. I have a degree in translation and have been translating for a few years now, so I didn\u2019t know how useful it would be, and I am\u2014like I think many translators are\u2014extremely introverted. Given the choice between getting a root canal or chatting up a room full of people I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ll take the root canal, please. However, I keep in touch with my former classmates, and not a single one of them has said that attending the conference was a waste of time or resources. I wasn\u2019t sure if going would be helpful, but I figured it couldn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

What next? Well, my personal philosophy is to always have a plan. Once I\u2019d decided to attend the conference I immediately started planning so I could get the most out of it. I had a look at the first-timer\u2019s guide in the ATA\u2019s \u201cSavvy Newcomer\u201d blog, downloaded the conference app, and immediately began organizing my schedule. By the time I landed in San Francisco, I had each day planned for (supposedly) optimum effectiveness.<\/p>\n

Educational sessions held throughout the day are organized into subject-specific tracks and are a major part of the conference. I\u2019m trying to expand my business, so I planned to attend sessions in the \u201cIndependent Contractor\u201d track. These were great, and I picked up tips and tricks for getting more work and running my business smoothly, but by the second afternoon I was feeling burnt out\u2026so I decided to change things up. I went to a few medical sessions, even though they focused on language pairs other than mine. Were they helpful? You bet! Although the target language examples didn\u2019t apply to me, I still learned strategies to improve my medical translations. Overall, I\u2019m pleased with how much I learned, and in the months after the conference I even put that knowledge to use when I worked on a large medical project.<\/p>\n

The other major part of the conference is networking, and that\u2019s the part that worried me. I went to the Welcome Celebration on the first night, where everyone from the ATA divisions can mingle and learn more about one another, and I honestly felt a bit like a deer in the headlights. However, the whole process became markedly easier when I realized one obvious thing: everyone else is here to network, too!\u00a0 They want<\/em> to meet new people and talk with them, and all the people that I spoke with were wonderfully welcoming. After making it through that first hectic evening, everything else\u2014such as talking to agency reps in the Exhibit Hall\u2014was no problem at all.<\/p>\n

Now for the big question: do I think going to the conference was worth it? I absolutely do. I picked up new skills and met other people working in my field. This profession can be a solitary one, and having actual, face-to-face contact with other humans was, for me, one of the best parts of the entire experience.<\/p>\n

So, now that I\u2019ve (hopefully) convinced you to go, what are my suggestions for your first conference?<\/p>\n