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[2clueless]

My department has offered me money to attend a conference this fall, but the travel funds must be used before the end of the semester. I've poked around and haven't found anything particularly compelling, but I feel like I "should" take advantage of every opportunity. At the same time, it's been a rough few months and my desire to go away, even for a single weekend, is quite low; the travel funds would probably cover registration fees and travel costs, but not lodging or dog boarding. (If I go, I'd prefer a conference in a city where I have friends or that has hostels, so I'm more concerned about the cost of boarding my dogs than of lodging.)

How much utility is there in attending a smallish conference without presenting? Is it worth the out-of-pocket cost of boarding the dogs and the disruption to my schedule of going away for a weekend? I assume the benefits of going are networking; learning about others' research/gaining ideas for my own; and looking like a go-getter to my department. Are there benefits that I'm not considering?

[tuxedo_cat]

Stay home and hang out in the park with the dogs for an afternoon.  So long as you are otherwise professionally active, not using this "opportunity" should not be a problem.  There will be plenty of other opportunities to network, and that trip will obviously be much more productive if you are actually presenting your work.  I know, the money is there . . . but no administrator is going to frown at your decision not to use it right now.

[2clueless]

Stay home and hang out in the park with the dogs for an afternoon.  So long as you are otherwise professionally active, not using this "opportunity" should not be a problem.  There will be plenty of other opportunities to network, and that trip will obviously be much more productive if you are actually presenting your work.  I know, the money is there . . . but no administrator is going to frown at your decision not to use it right now.

It's "use it or lose it" funding, unfortunately. Fortunately, it sounds like funding to attend conferences will be available again in the future. I may look a bit more to see if there's anything plausible in the two cities where my college friends live, but my motivation to travel is fairly low right now... even to travel as far as the dog park!

[sugaree]

If it's "use it or lose it" $ and you fail to use it, will you be likely to get funding in the future when another conference comes up that you really want to go to and/or have been accepted to present at? If you are at a school that spreads around money, it might be worth it to wait until there is something that you really want to or need to go to. If you are at a place that rewards previous awards, perhaps best not to let this opportunity pass, even if travel is not your ideal at this time.

[anon99]

If it's "use it or lose it" $ and you fail to use it, will you be likely to get funding in the future when another conference comes up that you really want to go to and/or have been accepted to present at? If you are at a school that spreads around money, it might be worth it to wait until there is something that you really want to or need to go to. If you are at a place that rewards previous awards, perhaps best not to let this opportunity pass, even if travel is not your ideal at this time.

+1 and ask if there are any open slots/last minute cancellations for presentations

[2clueless]

So the travel funding is apparently from "[Big Name in Field] Travel Fellowship": is that the sort of thing that one can put on a grad student or grad student-> job market CV without ending up lampooned on one of the CV threads? From what I gather, this particular travel fund is moderately competitive but should be available again in the future, with no guarantees. Weirdly, it appears that I'm the only first-year who was offered funds (awards are typically made in March, and for some reason, I was offered the remaining money in the fund). The grant would cover about half the costs of attending a conference that actually fits my interests well.

I've never heard of asking if there are any open slots or late minute cancellations; that's an intriguing idea. I don't have anything prepared that I could offer to present, although my data contains variables that would allow an analysis related to the conference "theme": it's just not a question that we've asked. I think I'm less enthusiastic about inventing a research question that doesn't interest me than I am about traveling. OTOH, I recognize that I'm whining about something that is a real privilege - we didn't have travel funding at either GradSchool1 or OldSkool, and I expect that wherever I end up next will not have the financial resources that my department does.

Sugaree's point that funding-begets-funding probably convinced me that I should go, if I can put the "travel fellowship" on my short-term c.v. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea of having to deal with that old data. Anyone want to tell me what I should look at or randomly assign me a statistical method? And I assume that I have to have the analysis done before I ask if there are any cancellations, yes?