Session Description: The ESA annual meeting can be simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating for student attendees, especially when you don’t know anyone or it’s your first conference. The objective of this special session is to welcome students and to provide them with the tools they need to ensure their ESA experience is positive and productive. We will begin with a short presentation that covers: • ESA annual meeting schedule and structure• Strategies for identifying sessions of interest• Student Section opportunities and events focusing on students• Effective and responsible uses of social media during the meeting• Strategies for avoiding meeting burnoutAs students, we attend the meeting to share our research, learn about new ideas, and rub elbows with many awesome ecologists. Critical to a productive meeting experience is networking with a wide range of people and forming relationships with other students from around the world. This is not a natural skill set for most people; the second half of this session will focus on networking with fellow students to build relationships and foster future collaboration. We will provide some brief tips on how to start and maintain conversations with time for student networking. This session targets first time attendees, but advice and discussion/networking opportunities are relevant to students at all levels as well as recent graduates in attendance.