The Symposium on What-Now?

This was written during a 12 hour train ride from Atlanta to New Orleans on July 16.

I have been criss-crossing the continent for most of the summer, with my latest travels taking me to Georgia (the American one). For those of you who consider me a good-for-nothing layabout student, I can assure you that this voyage actually qualifies as "for business." At least part of it.

I was brought to Georgia for the Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS), an annual gathering of computer scientists whose main area of research is combinatorial search. The conference took place in Stony Mountain, Georgia which is approximately 30-45 minutes from Atlanta.

This was certainly a worthwhile event, as many of the top scientists in the field were on hand to present their latest work, discuss ideas for future research, and mingle in a social setting. In some sense, this two-day event is an onslaught of combinatorial search research. Part of this is due to the nine-to-five portion of each day being consumed with podium or poster presentations of state-of-the-art research, but perhaps the most productive portion of the symposium occurs outside of this formal structured component. This is because you eat with the group, you enjoy your coffee breaks with the group, and you wind down the rest of the day with the group (perhaps over a cold pint of Yuengling). And it is during these informal discussions, that many ideas for future research emerges.

Now I'm not going to pretend that I spent 2 and a half days talking only science (the half day coming in the form of an opening reception the night before the main portion of the symposium). It was great to see Zee German again, as I have not had much of an opportunity to speak to him since he left Alberta for his fatherland. And I certainly enjoyed having an opportunity to learn about the personal lives of researchers whom I have only known through their scientific output. But the common interest of all of the people in attendance is that of combinatorial search, and so it was this topic that dominated discussion.

As a PhD student still early into this latest degree and without a thesis topic yet decided upon --- don't worry Ma, this is true of almost everyone at this stage --- such an opportunity to survey the current landscape of your field, find out what people are interested in, and bounce ideas off of top minds, is immensely useful. And it is reasons like this that such symposiums or workshops can be so valuable.