Science and Beyond

After attending ComSciConHouston 2018, a two day workshop focused to communicate science to the public, I am finally about to start writing about science. The key to successful science communication it seems lies in being able to talk about science at a level that even a five year old can understand what you are trying to get through. And as easy as it might sound, the struggle in toning down your work or research in easy to understand terms is real. It is hard to present your research in a way that is concise but still accurate. On the first day of the workshop, when I was asked to give a three minute spiel of what my research is about, I had no idea how certain terms I had assumed to be commonly understood by people turned out to be obscure and were labelled jargon. 

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And so the most important lesson I learnt was to level off the ground for people to make them care about what you have to say. We had some amazing panel discussions and insights about the real struggles associated with communicating science where all the panelists had a singular advise: get rid of jargon and turn your research into a narrative, so that the audience (or anyone you are trying to communicate with) can feel the connection; can understand that your science is not about you alone. Someone called it "Explain and not name" and I felt indeed how critical it was, especially in  this  era of digital information overload; where people often might not read or even listen to content that is not compelling enough to them. And the only way to make them care is to hook them to your story. 

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I also learnt some fun facts: 

#1.There is something called Kardashian index which is a measure of the gap between a scientist's digital (social media) presence and the number of citations. Apparently, science needs it own share of tweets and facebook likes. 

#2. Networking is as important as doing research.

#3. Well you still need a Real Job, I was told. Ironically, even though based on facts and driven by science, a lot of people still do not consider science communication as a real job. 

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When I started grad school, I had little idea about what science communication was, let alone practice it. But like everything that we learn slowly and become adept at, communicating science is an art that needs practice. 

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ComSciConHouston 2018 has been a great starting point for me. I met some amazing people. It was indeed wonderful to be in a room full of people, united by the singularity of their passion not only towards science, but also driven to bringing it out for people. At the end of the day, it is all about reaching out and taking chances for the things that you truly care about. #comscicon