ASTRO 2014 Medical Student

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excalibur86

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I was an MS4 attending ASTRO in Atlanta last year and I enjoyed a few sessions. Most of it will be over your head. Trying to network is pretty much pointless -- the people you'll want to be in touch with are too busy to really connect with in most cases. There was a resident/student mixer which was a nice idea but kind of awkward in practice.

On the flip side, if you do interview at a program where one of their faculty presented something major at ASTRO, it's nice to be able to chat about the talk on your interview day.

Enjoy SF!
 
I was an MS4 attending ASTRO in Atlanta last year and I enjoyed a few sessions. Most of it will be over your head. Trying to network is pretty much pointless -- the people you'll want to be in touch with are too busy to really connect with in most cases. There was a resident/student mixer which was a nice idea but kind of awkward in practice.

On the flip side, if you do interview at a program where one of their faculty presented something major at ASTRO, it's nice to be able to chat about the talk on your interview day.

Enjoy SF!

Alternatively, once you match somewhere you can look up that person's ASTRO poster/oral presentation and act like you were there at the time.

I went to ASTRO and it was cool to meet other medical students. The med student-resident mixer was kind of pointless from a networking standpoint, as only 2 of the residents came (both of who were ARRO executive members). Sounds like either the residents weren't notified of the event or (more likely) had no reason to waste their time with medical students. This is a place where having incentive (likely free/discounted alcohol) would be significantly better than the status quo. Didn't help that it was during the general poster session (when most students/residents are supposed to be standing in front of their posters).

That being said, I spent the majority of one day just exploring the city. I realized very quickly on the first day I was there that I don't know enough about the intracacies of the field to understand why most of the relatively minor stuff that is presented is important.
 
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