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I have mixed feelings about this. I joined IEEE as a student for purposes of publications and getting discounts on conference rates. I have continued my members
by ubj 2y ago
I have mixed feelings about this. I joined IEEE as a student for purposes of publications and getting discounts on conference rates. I have continued my membership mainly because it's common among my professional peers. There are some benefits.
However, I have received more spam and unwanted mail (both electronic and physical) from IEEE than any other organization I've been a part of. I find it ironic that I am essentially paying to be marketed to.
All-in-all I'm at about a 50% satisfaction rate with IEEE. The benefits are good enough to prevent me from leaving, but there are enough drawbacks that I wouldn't miss it at all if I did.
- reliabilityguy 2y agoWhat kind of benefits do you find valuable?
- Onavo 2y agoThey occasionally have good insurance offerings, occasionally.
- ubj 2y agoI'm still in academia, and IEEE runs quite a few high-quality / top-tier journals and conferences in my research area (TAC, TRO, RA-L, LCSS, ACC, CDC, etc.) I'm a part of the control systems society, and their Controls Systems Magazine is a good read. On the perhaps more trivial side an Overleaf professional subscription was included with my membership. So again, there are benefits. But I am frustrated that I'm being advertised to and having my data sold to third-party companies after paying over $200 per year for a membership. I also have issues with journal paywalls, but this is slowly changing as open access journals become more common.
- jldugger 2y ago> So again, there are benefits. But I am frustrated that I'm being advertised to and having my data sold to third-party companies after paying over $200 per year for a membership. Isn't your library covering IEEE access?
- ubj 2y agoYes, my University library covers access to many (but not all) IEEE articles, but the ability to download and read IEEE articles from a library is completely separate from being an IEEE member. IEEE membership costs ~$229 for 2025 in the U.S. for Professionals [1]. This fee typically is not covered by universities in my experience. If you're asking why I don't simply access articles through my library and forget about the membership, members typically are given fairly significant discounts and enhanced options for publishing in conferences and open access journals. [1]: https://www.ieee.org/membership/join/dues.html https://www.ieee.org/membership/join/dues.html