On my own but not alone

摘要

When I stumbled on the advertisement for the symposium, I couldn't wait to tell my colleagues. It looked like a great day of presentations highly relevant to our research, and I expected they would be eager to attend with me. To my disappointment, no one was interested. A year earlier, when I had just left my home country for a postdoc, I would not have considered going alone. Whom would I talk to and sit with? I would have spent the entire meeting feeling awkward and self-conscious, unable to focus on the science or networking opportunities. But I had grown. I had gained the confidence to strike out on my own.