The Conferencation: Adding Personal Time to a Scientific Meeting

Dear Dora,

Any tips on how to tack a vacation on to a conference without my PI getting angry? I’m traveling to a conference in a great location and I want to stay an extra week after the conference (which itself is a week long), but I’m really nervous to tell the boss. 

-RJ, graduate student

Dear RJ,

Congratulations on going to a conference in an exciting location! The time that you spend at the conference does not come out of your vacation days. If you want to spend an extra week there, then you would need to take those days off. Most schools have policies regarding the number of vacation days students are allowed to take (if you do not know it, find out from your academic administrator or student handbook). Whether or not such a policy is published, most schools and workplaces allow at least two weeks vacation a year. Therefore, by all means take the extra week off. If your PI seems unhappy, let him/her know that this is just one week of vacation, and you are not doing anything against the rules. In addition, you will come back rested and more productive.

Of course the extra week of lodging will have to come out of your own budget, but the airfare to and from should be covered by the school.

Dora Farkas, Ph.D. is the author “The Smart Way to Your Ph.D.:200 Secrets from 100 Graduates,” and the founder of PhDNet, an online community for graduate students and PhDs. You will find links to her book, monthly newsletters, and discussion board on her site. Send your questions to [email protected] and keep an eye out for them in an upcoming issue!

Stay tuned for the next Dear Dora in two weeks!  In the meantime, check a few of Dora’s recent posts:

• Keeping Preliminary Results Private with an Overexcited PI
• How Long is Acceptable for Holiday Vacation?
• Graduate School: How Long is Too Long?
• Is a Parasitic Postdoc Trying to Steal Your Project?
• Is the NIH Minimum Binding for All?
• Backing Out of a Postdoc Offer for a Better One
• Managing Publication Jealousy in the Lab
• Debriefing the Lab After a Scientific Conference
• Music in the Lab: MyTunes, iTunes, or No Tunes?
• Cell Culture Derailing Your Vacation Plans?
• Is a Publication Gap on Our CV a Job Killer?
• How to Leave a Postdoc Quickly with Your Reputation Intact
• How to Establish and Enforce the Chain of Command in Lab

Submit your questions to Dora at [email protected], or use the comment box below!

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