As students, we attend the ESA Annual Meeting to present our research, obtain feedback, and rub elbows with some pretty awesome, established ecologists. Critical to a productive meeting experience is networking with a wide range of people and forming relationships with other students from around the country. The purpose of this session is to provide practical tips on how to start and maintain conversations and then provide activities to get students working on their networking skills with each other. This session targets first time attendees, but advice and discussion/networking opportunities are relevant to students at all levels and recent graduates in attendance.