Last week I passed another grad school milestone: I went to ICSE 2007, my first research conference.
I do not think I could have had a better first conference. ICSE is one of the top three or four software engineering conferences in the world, and attracts some excellent submissions. I arrived Tuesday night and spent the next four days listening to many interesting talks (and, of course, a few boring ones) and networking with other researchers. I saw too many great ideas and met too many smart people to describe in this short weblog post; check out the list of papers and presenters if you are interested.
We spent most of our time in the hotel conference center, but I did get a chance to see some of the rest of Minneapolis. On Thursday, the conference dinner was held at Nicollet Island, a historic park in the middle of the Mississippi River. There, one could try hatchet throwing, archery, or a Segway. I hit the hatchet target after only three tries, but did not get a chance to shoot an arrow or ride a Segway because the Minnesota cold drove me back indoors. Has my short time in California made me so thin-skinned?
On Saturday night, after a long day at the Automated Software Test Workshop, I went with a small group to the Mall of America. We ate dinner at a completely ridiculous rainforest-themed restaurant whose walls were covered in jungle foliage and animatronic animals with servers dressed as safari guides. After that, we walked around, basking in the glow of American consumerism.