Attending academic and professional conferences can be a transformative experience for undergraduate students, offering opportunities to enrich their knowledge, expand their professional skills, and foster personal growth. However, undergraduate students may lack the knowledge and confidence to fully benefit from conference attendance. This two-part study investigated the experiences of undergraduate students at a 2025 regional professional conference, informing the development of the Pre-Conference Mentorship Initiative (PCMI). The PCMI is a synchronous online webinar designed to support students' professional networking skills. In the initial investigation (part 1), undergraduate exercise science students (N = 95) at the 2025 conference completed pre- and post-conference online surveys about their conference experience. Although nearly all respondents (98.6%) reported receiving faculty encouragement to attend, only 32.1% received guidance on networking. Thematic analysis further indicated students’ desire for increased support and guidance on networking prior to conference attendance. To address these outcomes, the PCMI will be implemented in early 2026, prior to the next regional conference (part 2). It is hypothesized that students who participate in the webinar will have increased confidence in and knowledge of the benefits of networking. Students will be assessed pre- and post-webinar to examine changes in confidence and knowledge. Additionally, data will be collected at the 2026 conference through an online survey to assess differences in networking activities between participants and non-participants in the webinar. It is hypothesized that students completing the webinar will participate in a greater number of networking activities at the 2026 conference. The combined results will be presented and used to inform conference organizers about the potential value of pre-conference education for undergraduate students and faculty who mentor them, allowing students to optimize their conference experience. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
Stenson et al. (Fri,) studied this question.