This will be my fourth total, but my first professional conference in my field. The rest have only been graduate student conferences, while this one is bigger and has a good mix of professors and grad students presenting their work. The next level from here will be the APA conference (American Philological Association), which I'll try to get into once I'm in the thick of dissertation work in a couple years.
Oh, and do you know James Brophy at BU, perchance?
Damn, that's awesome. I'm shooting for MLA 2016. The conference I'm presenting at in April is NeMLA, which is a good step.
Yes, I do! Not well, but I met him when he started and I've seen him a few times since then. Is he a friend of yours?