Many times I've heard about conferences taking place at my university. Many students I know attend these conferences on a regular basis. Many of them presented their projects there (wow!). I have to tell you, that made me feel a bit stupid, because I always thought I was relatively smart... but not smart enough to attend a scientific conference. After all, a conference is where all the hi-tech maniacs go, the people who are skilled in the field, the people who spend their time researching new things, exploring the realms that weren't previously known to mankind... I don't think I'm one of them; I do know a few things about this and that, but one doesn't go to a conference with this kind of knowledge. Or... do they? It turns out they do! By accident, I happened to attend one of such circus-shows conferences. Oh yeah, I was impressed! All those clowns intelligent people talked about "new" things, displayed the results of their "individual efforts", and in the end the audience applauded ;-) Ahh... life is very unfair. I wasted 3+ hours of my life, I could have invested them into something else. Eh, at least now I have an idea about a conference in Moldova. Not to offend the country, I'm going to narrow that down to "a conference taking place at UTM" (the technical university).

• In many cases, teachers (project coordinators) were only present when their students presented their projects. They were too busy to watch other people present their stuff.
• Many students took off as soon as their presentation was over. Yeah, that's how one expresses their respect, right?
• One guy... actually, two guys, from a company called (yeah right.. no free advertising for you, assholes!) proved they possess the most advanced skills of creating an ambiguous description of something. Yep, I've never heard anyone speak about anything in such general terms. In the end I asked one of them about a more detailed review of his work; guess what? He couldn't disclose that information because it was the company's internal stuff! So why the hell did you come to the conference then? To waste my time by telling me something that I already knew, or could find out by spending 10 minutes browsing Wikipedia? (in the comfort of my home, with a cup of tea at hand)
• Besides these uber-ambiguous works, there were other types too; one of them is the "I downloaded the program, read the manual, and here is what it can do" type. Mda, I don't think I can find a better way to insult one's intelligence. What's the point of taking an existing technology and simply describing it to us? Aren't conferences supposed to be attended by people who are experienced in the field?

Bla bla bla... Yep, all these "papers" and their authors were applauded, which only proved that a great part of the audience had no idea how stupid the situation was. Now... what should my reaction be when I read "doctor conferen?iar" in one's title? What should my attitude towards students who attend conferences be? (I refer to those who 'created' projects such as those I described above) It's painful to know that they get scholarships and additional bonuses for this kind of "work". These scholarships are paid from the state budget (yes, our tax money). My final conclusion is that the quality of education sucks, if that's what they call a "conference". I know, I don't have the right to write this because I haven't done better myself (I mean, I have, but it's not the kind of research you present at a conference). The whole event was nothing but a way to check a few check-boxes in one's list, and to update somebody's CVs with "attended conference X on October the 17th". This event is probably one of the most disappointing things about the educational system in Moldova. Among the other ones - examenul de bacalaureat :-) and the stupid copy-pasters who cheat on exams by transferring the data, bit-by-bit, from their cheat-sheets, without understanding a word of what they write :-)