Ask HN: How do you do Conferences?

I applied and was accepted to participate in the Programing Languages Mentoring Workshop [0] at the International Conference on Functional Programming [1] and the main conference in general, my first conference.

As a sophomore in college, I don't feel that I'm prepared to get the most out of attending and my advisor—to no fault of his own, he's interested in Computer-Human Interface and CS education—was not much help.

Since there is no one way to "do" a conference—especially during COVID-19—how do you participate in conferences?

Sidenote: I'm also interested in working on and presenting research to which I'm looking at participating in a REU [2] or one of the two research opportunities my university offers [3,4]. Due to the unnerving end of my freshman year, this summer was a wash.

[0]: https://icfp20.sigplan.org/home/PLMW-icfp-2020?track=PLMW%20%40%20ICFP%20

[1]: https://icfp20.sigplan.org/

[2]: https://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/index.jsp

[3]: https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/undergraduate-research/surf/

[4]: https://www.elon.edu/u/academics/undergraduate-research/summer-programs/sure/