A diary of attending the IWQoS 2023 conference
From June 16 to 24, 2023, with the encouragement of my instructor and the support of my lab, I went to Orlando, USA to attend the IWQoS 2023 conference. After this trip abroad to attend the conference, not only did I gain a wealth of insights and meet some other excellent teachers and students in related fields, but also accumulated some experience. This article is presented in the form of a diary, recording my preparation for the conference and some anecdotes during the conference, as well as my feelings. I hope that I can share my harvest with you and inspire you as well.
2023/05/16 Shenyang Consulate Visa Interview
One of my papers was accepted by this year's IWQoS conference, which will be held in the U.S. Therefore, I started to prepare the materials for the U.S. visa as soon as I received the invitation letter from the conference. If my visa was rejected or checked due to insufficient preparation of documents, I would not only lose the valuable opportunity to go abroad to attend the conference, but also, according to the requirements of the conference, I would need to find an proxy to attend the conference and present my paper, which would add a lot of workload in vain. Therefore, I made sufficient preparations before departure: in order to make an appointment as early as possible to save time, I went to the Shenyang Consulate, which is the farthest away from Hefei; I asked my senior labmates to teach me about the failure experience of applying for a visa, and also read a lot of guides and Q&A postings of interviews on Zhihu and Xiaohongshu; I prepared a very detailed supporting materials, and printed a total of more than 40 documents......Finally, I started on the road to apply for the U.S. visa with two bags full of documents and an uneasy heart.
On May 15, I arrived in Shenyang one day early and went to the consulate to familiarize myself with the process. The next day was the interview day, I entered the consulate, passed the security check, collected fingerprints, and all processes were carried out under the guidance of the staff. There was a long line in front of the interview window, and while I was standing in line, I was observing the results of other people's interviews, which seemed to be mostly not smooth. Finally, it was my turn. The interviewer and I greeted each other and communicated in Chinese the whole time. The interviewer asked me basic questions about my purpose of going to the US, whether I was invited, whether I had been to the US, whether I had traveled to other countries, and so on. Then, he asked me for the invitation letter, content of the presentation, CV and supervisor's resume. Finally, I was given a blue acknowledgement slip, which indicated that my application was subject to administrative review, which was expected to take more than four weeks, but that I didn't need additional materials. " That’s too bad," I thought to myself, "4 weeks is already too late, I should find a proxy as soon as possible." And just like that, after getting the results of the CHECK, my interview journey was over.
Tips: The following are the documents I prepared for my visa application. Although I only used a few of them, it is still recommended that you make the most adequate preparations so that you will not be unable to provide the documents when the visa officer asks for them.
Administrative Documents
Approval from the Office of International Cooperation
Certificate of Dispatch from the Graduate School
Letter of Responsibility for Overseas Exchange
Personal Information
Full text of all published papers
Full text of papers in this conference (submitted as content of presentation)
Certificate of graduate student enrollment (both from USTC and CityU)
Graduate transcripts (both from USTC and CityU)
Graduate student training plan (both from USTC and CityU)
Supervisor's CV
Personal resume (Chinese and English)
Photocopy of family register (for myself and head of household)
Insurance policy
Vaccination certificate
Bank statement
Conference Information
Invitation letter
Call for paper
Conference program
Conference introduction
Registration Confirmation Letter, Payment Order
Receipt of paper by e-mail
Schedule to the U.S.
Visa Appointment Document
Visa Application Submission Confirmation Page
Visa Application Form
Visa Appointment Letter
Identity Documents
Passport Scan
Scanned copy of ID card
Photo ID
2023/06/09 Hefei Opportunity Arisen
After returning to Hefei, I shared my interview result with my labmates.
Although everyone told me "check means there is still hope, just be confident!", "my roommate in XX lab was also checked, but she passed, and is going to attend INFOCOM soon". But essentially, there was nothing more I could do about the visa thing. So, I refreshed the results every one to two days without any expectations, and it was "Refused" all the time. I found the IWQoS submission group on Zhihu, and joined a group of people who had not passed their visas in anxiety. I also started to think about finding an agent. I first contacted my classmates from other labs in USTC who were going to attend the FCRC, and they agreed to speak on my behalf, and then I also contacted one of a groupmates in the IWQoS submission WeChat as a plan B. All in all, I was mentally prepared not to go to the meeting.
Things changed on the afternoon of June 9th. On that day, Jiuwei asked me, "How is your visa?" I smiled bitterly, "I haven't checked it yet today, do you want to witness the result together?" At this time, Zhaoyuan passed by my dest and came to join in the fun. So, I skillfully opened the query webpage, skillfully entered the ID number and verification code, unlike the usual "Refused", a blue "Issued" is clearly displayed on the computer screen. "Ah, I've passed!" Two of my classmates were so happy for me that they stood up and started applauding.
Tips: If you get checked for a U.S. visa, there is no uniform pattern for the length of the check. However, the rumor on the internet is that it will be refreshed once in the third week and once in the sixth week after the end of the interview. If there is no request for additional documents after the interview, then it is possible to issue after the third week, but if the request for additional documents, then at least after the sixth week will be the result. In order to avoid delay in attending the conference and to minimize unnecessary troubles, it is recommended that you register as early as possible after your thesis has been accepted and ask for a letter of invitation, go through the administrative procedures according to the school's regulations, then make an appointment to apply for a visa, and prepare sufficient documents in advance.
2023/06/16 Shanghai-London-Orlando Departure
My flight this time was from Shanghai to Orlando with a six-hour stopover in London.
On the evening of June 16th, I took the last subway to Shanghai Pudong Airport. After check-in, security and a long wait, I finally boarded the plane. The first flight, on Air China, was on time and smooth. I take out my tablet occasionally to review for my final exams, and spend most of my time napping, but it's a very uncomfortable sleep. After arriving in London, I rested at the airport before flying to Orlando. The second flight was on British Airways, and compared to the first, there were almost no Chinese passengers, and the flight attendants communicated in English the entire time. It was my first time to go to an English environment, and I made a lot of jokes. For example, when the flight attendant asked "Do you want some coffee?" and I answered "Yes", the conversation was repeated three times, and the guy sitting next to me started to laugh, and I realized that what the flight attendant was asking was actually "Tea or coffee". I ate American food for the first time on the airplane, the American uncle asked me if I liked it, I was silent for a few seconds, forced to smile and said "It's good", and then was recognized by the uncle at once, he said: "I understand you, I think Chinese food is the most delicious.
You can eat food from many countries in the US, and they all have a high quality of reproduction, except for Chinese food, which is very poorly cooked." My lack of English made it difficult for me to express my complicated feelings, so I had to say "Yes". When I landed, I asked the airport staff where I could buy a phone card, and after stumbling over my words for half a day, they replied in Chinese, "You should speak Chinese." Although I had just left my country for one day, at that moment, I was touched by the feeling of meeting a friend from another country.
Anyway, after a long 25-hour trip, I finally made it to hot and humid Orlando. After checking in at the hotel and finishing up my online final in Concrete Math, I was finally able to rest.
Tips: It is recommended that you make full preparation before going abroad. If there is a conflict between your itinerary and the final exams, you should adjust your itinerary as early as possible or negotiate with your lecturers to adjust the time. In addition, learn some practical English and try to avoid misunderstandings or embarrassing incidents.
2023/06/19-21 Orlando In Session
I spent the day adjusting to jet lag, waking up and wandering around the hotel to find nearby convenience stores, restaurants, and places to visit.On the morning of June 19, I took a shuttle bus to the conference venue. First, I checked in and received my name tag and souvenir shirt, then I ate the breakfast provided by the venue and went to the conference hall for the meeting after it was over.
In the opening statement on the first day, the conference chairs introduced the basic situation of this year's conference submissions and reviews respectively, and then they roughly introduced the flow of the conference, which consisted of keynote speech, technical session, plenary session, coffee break and other parts. Then there were reports of different sessions. As the first technical session came to an end and the coffee break began, the professors in the room began to shake hands and socialize, expressing interest in each other's work, leaving only a group of young people who looked like students to be speechless, looking at each other at a loss for words. I don't know who started the conversation, "You're students too, aren't you?" Everyone replied, "Yes, yes, yes," and began to chat in a group. We chatted about where we were headed and our plans for graduate school. I learned that there were students who had published their papers in their first year of graduate school, those who were very fluent in English, those who had submitted their papers to SIGCOMM and were almost accepted, and those who had delivered lectures on behalf of their brothers/professors/co-workers. Among them, two students from Fudan started taking selfies with everyone, which turned out to be because their mentor set the task: "The purpose of the meeting is to communicate with others, so take selfies with students you've communicated with."
At noon on June 20, after lunch, I was resting in the lobby, when I suddenly received a message "USTC alumni want to see you", I wondered who it was, and the other party said "Yi Liu", so I jogged all the way to the restaurant to meet him. Yi had studied in the lab during his undergraduate years. He and I had not met before, but we recognized each other immediately in the restaurant, and I shook his hand excitedly. One of his papers was accepted by SIGMETRICS, which is a FCRC session together with IWQoS, so we were able to meet. Yi said that he missed USTC very much during the days when he was away from USTC, and he also paid close attention to the news in the lab. He occasionally logged into the professor's homepage to see the latest results of the lab. Yi also asked me about labmates who he spent time with in the lab during his undergraduate years, and I told him that Yunyun Feng's paper was recently accepted by TMC, and he was very happy for her and the lab. Unfortunately, I had to go to the conference hall in the afternoon to prepare for my presentation, so I had to say goodbye to him.
The next afternoon, it was finally my turn to give a report. Because of my poor English, I made a lot of jokes, and this time was no exception. After the report, someone asked a question about the methodology of the simulation experiment, and he thought that the channel conditions in the simulation and the real world were very different, I didn't understand his point, and replied instead, "The signal process and the protocol of the simulation are the same, so it can mimic the decoding of the real receivers." Luckily, he was patient enough to re-explain his question and said that my report was not bad, which gave me a lot of encouragement.
Once the report was done, the session became much more relaxed. At the session, I also listened to the work of many other great labs and teams. Although most of them were not familiar to me, I could clearly feel the importance of "telling a good question". I think a lot of the work in the systems direction is difficult to appreciate the subtleties of the solutions without the context. However, many of the problems are from a practical point of view, so if we can talk about the problems well, we can at least attract people's interest and stimulate exchanges and discussions.
Tips: Academic conferences are the best occasions for communicating research problems. According to my observation, in addition to good presentation, there are the following factors that can easily attract others to discuss with you: having the same experience or background, having cooperative relationship, good at listening and asking questions, similar research direction, etc. You can prepare yourself according to your own situation and try to communicate with other excellent scholars and teachers as much as possible, so that you will have rich harvest.
2023/06/22 Orlando-London-Shanghai Back Home
Three days flew fast, and this IWQoS experience came to an end, and on June 22nd, I took the plane back to my home country. I am very grateful to the lab for giving me this opportunity to attend the conference, which is not only my first time to participate in an offline academic conference and exchange discussions, but also my first time to go abroad. During this trip, I not only listened to other authors' presentations of their original scientific work, but also observed the prospective presentations of other high-level professors in related fields. In addition, I met Liu Yi, an undergraduate student who graduated from the lab, and exchanged ideas about his life and research experience during his PhD study, which was very rewarding. I will work harder to advance my work and get more exchange opportunities in the future.