APA

Just saw a tweet about the APA (that’s the American Philosophical Association). I only went twice to the convention: Boston in 1999, and Philadelphia in 2002 (my last time in both places, sad to say).

To my surprise, I really liked the APA convention both times! Yes, doctoral students and fresh Ph.D.’s can sometimes feel cold-shouldered even by the professors from their home institutions. But that’s only in a few cases. In general I found most of the people there to be warm, welcoming, and open. And for some reason I wasn’t expecting that, perhaps because a number of my friends returned home extremely depressed after their first visit to the “meat market.” (Yes, going somewhere for job interviews is inherently a terrible experience, but there are ways to take your mind off of that fact and trust to the hand of fate.) The book displays at the convention are of course wonderful. And for graduate students there is always the fun game of who can spot the first celebrity.

That said, I haven’t been a member of the association for a few years, for the simple reason that I almost never set foot in the United States anymore, nor do I look at the JFP job ads at this point. But if you’re a graduate student horrified by your first visit to the convention, there’s no need to be. It can be enjoyable. I’m not always a lover of conferences, but did have a great time on both of my trips to the APA. By contrast, I didn’t always have a great time at SPEP, which I attended three times in the now-distant past: 1990, 1991, 1993. Never since.