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Ask HN: Is membership to the BCS worth while?
I've been a Member of the BCS for 3 years and originally joined during my undergraduate degree as a student. I joined because of the discounted rate for those in university and once again my membership has come up for renewal. At a cost of £118 per annum I'm questioning whether it is worth while?
The BCS seems to be targeted at management and those more advanced in their career. I haven't found any events or anything in the quarterly magazine that peaked my interest.
I know there are other services around and some recognition for status (I have thought about becoming a Chartered Engineer) but are these relevant/valued in today's world with firms/recruiters?
More broadly, does the ACM have these same problems? Would I be better to in joining something else (such as ACCU (http://www.accu.org/))? Or am I missing something which would increase its attractiveness?
- walshemj 13y agoI looked at the BCS with a view to to taking the experience route to become a member but they kept changing the rules and its unclear what they actually woudl do for me and to be brutal they and IEE have done bugger all in the last 100 years to help Engineers and those in the IT industry have they. that 1 hour program Jeremy Clarkson did on Brunell did much more for the status of engineers that the IEE have ever done.
- bavcyc 13y agoRegarding Chartered Engineer, i.e. US Professional Engineer; it can be helpful in certain industries but my home state (for example) has exceptions for engineers working in manufacturing of products such that a software/hardware developer doesn't need the license.
- EnderMB 13y agoI had a membership when I was a student, and I did get in contact with them once regarding my universities lack of a Data Structures and Algorithms class for Computer Science. To my knowledge, nothing came from it, which disappointed me as the course itself was accredited by the BCS. I did manage to take the course due to other circumstances, but it was still basically a course purely showing how to build a select few data structures in Java. I did enjoy the magazines they posted every month, though. They were usually a good read, and it's quite good to read an actual printed article about software development sometimes. I like the idea of the BCS, but I'm not entirely sold on it. I too think it would be a great thing to be a member of when you have many years of experience, but it really didn't help me much when I was a student.