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Attending computer science conferences can give students insight into the research process and how academic work is disseminated. This study examines undergraduate student perceptions about attending an interdisciplinary computational biology conference. The study was conducted over four academic years with a mix of participants who attended a conference as part of a course and participants who received an undergraduate travel award. Results from 70 students enrolled in nearly 30 different institutions indicate that attending conferences helped them learn about different careers, gave them a sense of what computational biology research entails, and provided insight into giving an effective oral presentation. We found that students who received a travel award felt more comfortable at the conferences than students who attended as part of a course. Based on these findings, we provide guidance about developing programs for undergraduate conference attendance.