Like with Linux User Groups, I think a lot of it depends upon your local section. I was an IEEE student member all through University so that I could participa

Like with Linux User Groups, I think a lot of it depends upon your local section. I was an IEEE student member all through University so that I could participate in IEEEXtreme[0]. I did eventually become involved in the student branch and attend some local section meetings. I think that IEEE loses a lot of their student members after graduation. As a "young" professional, I'm not sure if there is much value. Most of the young professionals I met were past chairs of the student branch (within the past 5 years or so). The rest of the section seemed to be much older folk (like 40-50+) - both in industry and in academia. [0] http://www.ieee.org/xtreme http://www.ieee.org/xtreme