6 days, hundreds of sessions, thousands of the countries best meteorologists and meteorology students. I give to you the American Meteorological Society Conference 2017 edition.

Seattle was the perfect host to the conference; it’s a city vibe with a relaxed atmosphere but with plenty to do and a whole lot to see. The student conference was the first thing on the agenda and in my opinion, it was what I got the most out of. I came into the conference with one main goal – meet new people. I met so many incredible students (both graduate and undergraduate) in the two days that I spent at the student conference that my goal was met literally within hours of getting to the conference.

It’s really easy to stay within your comfort zone at these kinds of things, especially when you are in a group of students you are friends with because those are the people you feel the best around. But my advice to get the absolute most out of a conference or experience like this is to put yourself out there and really try to hang out with people outside of your squad (no matter how #squadgoals your squad may be). That being said, I think it is important to spend some quality time exploring the place you’re at with your friends as well, which is exactly what we did.

So the first two days were full of networking, handing out business cards and talking to grad schools and even searching for that all important job offer or internship. Then the real work (erm… fun) started: the full AMS Conference session. The fun thing about the full conference is that it is completely customizable to the individual experience of each person. It is possible to tailor the entire conference based on your interests. I picked talks and sessions and research presentations based on the parts of meteorology that seemed most interesting to me and that’s how I got the most out of the conference where the knowledge being presented far exceeded mine.

The flexibility component was my favorite thing about the overall conference because it gave me time to learn more about the field of meteorology, but also time to explore the wonderful city of Seattle. This was the first step in what is going to be a semester of adventure and I am so glad I got to have this opportunity. First adventure down, next one starts in 8 days!