I was very fortunate to be able to be in Braunschweig during the second International Symposium on Bilinguals and L2 Processing in Adults and Children. This was my first conference, and to be able to be a part of some of the planning and to help out during the conference was really a great opportunity. I was able to meet many people who are doing interesting research in the field of linguistics, as well as see some of my fellow Penn Staters there. My favorite talk from the Symposium was given by Elise Hopman, who actually presented research that I had read about in Dr. Jackson’s lab at the beginning of the year. It was great to be able to put a face to the research and to hear her present it in person. It is even more exciting to know that one of my labmates from Penn State will be conducting further research like Elise’s work, which created an alien language to test the benefits of passive vs. active learning. While it was a lot of talks to stay focused through and a lot of different research that I was unfamiliar with, it was a terrific experience and I am very grateful to have been there and taken part in the events.
