
Ask HN: Are any of you IEEE members? - 52-6F-62
I&#x27;m considering membership, but thought I would also inquire to the community about recent experiences.<p>Do any of you hold IEEE membership? Is it worth it in your mind? If not, why not? If so, why so?<p>Likewise, do any of you hold any other professional organization memberships? Which, and why? Or if not, why not?<p>---<p>I searched through the archives and couldn&#x27;t find anything younger than about 8-10 years old with few comments. It would be interesting to hear updated information from others in the field.
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msravi
I was a student member, but cancelled after I graduated. For $200, I somehow
expected that I'd have complete access to their publications, but it turns out
that you don't get that. You've to pay extra for access to their digital
library (which you can't get without a membership), and even then, the access
is limited - something like 25 articles a month (which don't carry over) for
$44/month, with a minimum commitment of 6 months. The only reason to keep
their membership is access to their journals (especially those published in
the '70s and '80s), and since I already had access via my workplace, I didn't
think it worthwhile. You're basically looking at $733/year for limited access
to their publications.

Another option is to join a society within IEEE (in addition to membership).
This gives you a substantial discount on subscriptions to publications
sponsored by that society. However, I found that I needed to join multiple
societies to span the publications I was interested in, and it was just not
worth it.

~~~
anonymousDan
I don't know where you are getting your numbers from wrt ACM at least. Last
time I checked it was ~£100 without DL access, and £200 for membership + full
DL access. I think that is a pretty good deal. It costs money to run a digital
library, and you have to remember ACM isn't really comparable to profit driven
publishers such as Elsevier etc.

~~~
4ndr3vv
_> Do any of you hold IEEE membership?

>> I was a student member, but cancelled after I graduated

>>>I don't know where you are getting your numbers from wrt ACM at least_

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justin66
"We hold the copyright on a bunch of stuff you'd like to read" has never felt
like a compelling sales pitch to me. They and the ACM do a fair job of hiding
information from people who could use it, many of whom don't know it yet, but
I don't think that sort of thing should be rewarded.

I was almost ready to make the jump and join one of these until I realized how
many extra fees I'd incur to read everything I was interested in. IIRC with
the ACM it's papers presented at conferences that are extra, but it sounds
like IEEE has similar problems.

I can see how membership could have some other benefits, but it's hard to
justify the expense, and just distasteful to contribute to the academic
gatekeeping involved.

~~~
numbsafari
This is the same reason why, every time I’ve considered joining, I opt not to.
I’d rather see my funds go to support broader access to the content,
scholarships and other research grants, and the like, not gate keeping.

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drdeadringer
I was for a year or two while I was in college. I stopped because it felt like
I was paying the membership fee for the privilege of possibly paying a second
membership fee for one of the field-specific organizations... for what I still
have no idea. Several years post-college one of my fellow classmates noted to
me that he stopped his membership as well, and for similar reasons.

In the last year or so of college I was asked if I was interested in joining
the Society Of Women Engineers [SWE]; engineering activities for Girl Scouts,
field trips to engineering-related museums, actual stuff going on. I'm now a
lifetime member. Once in a while these days I go to an event or meeting. I
enjoy the magazine.

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sytelus
I have it and its mostly useless except that it gets you discount at few top
tier conferences. If you go to lot of their conferences, the membership will
almost pay for itself. The free stuff that comes with membership is virtually
useless and many times borderline spam.

I'm however considering cancelling this as my protest against their mostly pay
walled publications. Interestingly even if you have membership they still
don't give you access to it! In many ways they are as bad as Elsevier but have
managed avoid attention because technically they are "nonprofit" on paper and
they run lot of top tier conferences.

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michaelt

      do any of you hold any other professional organization
      memberships? [...] Or if not, why not?
    

I can understand the value of a professional organisation before the advent of
modern communication. There's genuine value in having a forum for discussion
with your peers, keeping technically up-to-date and knowing what other people
in the industry are doing.

This has been made obsolete by the rise of the internet.

I can understand the value of a professional organisation like the that has
useful power to enforce professional standards, preventing employers from
forcing employees into unethical behaviour. And I can understand the value -
though I don't much like it - of a professional organisation constraining the
supply of qualified workers to keep wages high.

Professional organisations in IT don't seem to achieve either of those things.

Some professional organisations run journals and standards committees and
publish academic research and standards. I can appreciate the value of that.

Being a member of the organisation doesn't grant you access to all their
publications.

Joining a professional institution would allow me to call myself a
"professional engineer" which, in my country, is a protected title.

But the distinction between "engineer" and "professional engineer" is lost on
most people. When I want to signal a higher social status other things are
easier and more effective.

About the only thing of much value I can see from professional organisations
is accrediting university courses. It's good for universities to have an
incentive to provide quality teaching to balance the incentive to focus on
research.

In other words, while professional bodies provide quite a list of benefits,
the list of benefits I care about seems quite sparse.

------
Arkanosis
I've been a member of the ACM from 2009 to 2012 for the only reason that it
was a prerequisite to get the printed version of the CACM (which you have to
pay in addition to the membership fee).

I cancelled my membership the day I realized I had one year of unread issues
sitting on my desk. I'd found for long that the quality of the publications in
CACM was no better than what I was reading on specialized blogs. It only had
additional prestige — or so I thought at the time.

After I had cancelled, I developed a growing uneasiness with how much effort
(and money!) was spent in getting me renew my membership, with a lot of
(international) mails on high-quality paper. No wonder the membership was so
expensive.

I'm still wondering about the actual benefits of such associations.

~~~
afandian
Me too, and for approx the same period. I ended up with about 2ft of CACMs
realising the amount I'd actually read was tiny. They're fascinating to dip
into though. Worth the ~100 USD/y to someone, but, I concluded, not me.

I think these decisions are interesting for early career software engineers.
Then, sometimes life takes you a direction where a professional affiliation
makes sense, sometimes it doesn't.

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jillesvangurp
I briefly was a member back in 2000. Basically, at the time they had an
extremely complex process and I didn't get what I wanted, which was blanket
access to their online publications. So I cancelled. Honestly, I thought it
was a bit of a scam. Here I was trying to do the right thing and basically
couldn't get access to anything. Already then, Google was very helpful in
tracking down pdfs.

My impression is that membership is entirely optional these days but probably
recommended if you frequently attend their conferences and other events and
depend on networking with people in IEEE professionally. I'm no longer in the
academic world so haven't looked at them recently.

But if I would, my membership would probably be conditional on open access.
I'd consider paying but not for access to their publications. A condition of
my membership would be full open access to every letter of everything ever
published under their name. It would be the single most beneficial thing they
could do to further the community they represent. I'm pretty sure they have
gone most of the way there already, But just making the point here that access
to published materials should not be a reason to join.

------
AndrewOMartin
There's no other company whose emails I've tried to unsubscribe from more. I
even managed to break away from LinkedIn's membership spam, but I still get
IEEE.

~~~
majewsky
Is this legal?

Here in Germany, after having terminated business relations with an
organization, you can force them to delete all personal data they hold about
you unless they are required to hold the data for legal compliance reasons.

(And before you say that's because of GDPR, it's actually been like this for
as long as I can remember, so at least 20 years. GDPR mostly just standardized
existing laws and added some potentially hefty fines to make it harder for
international corporations to ignore them.)

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CyberFonic
I have been an ACM and IEEE member for several decades. Over the years the
journals and transactions I subscribe to have changed along with my
professional focus. I find that the quality of articles is generally higher
than what you can find by random searching on the internet.

Several HNers have commented on the high cost of membership. I agree that that
at times I have been tempted to cancel my memberships. But it is a tax
deductible expense and in most professions the membership fees for their
respective bodies is comparable.

~~~
postwait
In addition, if you are a freelancer in the US you have access to group
healthcare.

------
bigtimber
IEEE member since 1995; joined because my company paid for it (also joined the
IEEE Computer Society, ACM and even APS, American Physical Society, at that
time for the same reason.) Continued my IEEE membership at my own expense
after retiring because I didn't want to lose my @ieee.org alias that I had
used for many years, also wanted to continue to have access to publications
and articles of interest. With that said, I would not recommend starting an
IEEE membership at your own expense unless you can afford it and want to
establish yourself in that community. I think they still require a sponsor for
membership.

------
TomMasz
I'm an IEEE Computer Society member, not a full member. It's a line on my
resume but has never provided a lot of value for me or my career.

I was once also a member of the ACM, but since I worked in the embedded
computing field (which is dominated by EEs) it wasn't as useful on a resume as
the IEEE. When I had to cut back spending when kids came along I dropped it in
favor of IEEE.

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jmiserez
I'm an ACM member, mostly for access to the ACM digital library to read
papers.

Most computer science papers tend to be available in the ACM library, while
the IEEE one leans more towards EE/hardware/networks.

As for other advantages conference tickets are cheaper for members, but
usually your employer/group should be paying these anyways.

~~~
CyberFonic
IEEE has several software specific publications, e.g. "Software".

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watersb
I kept my IEEE membership from 1996 to early 2000s, because I wanted to switch
career path, but had not landed anything that felt sustainable for me.

Then I did get my "forever job", and kept the journal subscriptions for a bit
because I wanted to see how the research related to my work.

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MrTonyD
I was a member for a couple of years back around 1985. It was a complete
waste. Even though that was before the Internet took off, I found that they
didn't provide any real sharing of information or sense of community. So I'm
not quite sure why they exist. And with the modern Internet, I wouldn't even
join if they offered to pay me a small salary every month.

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rsre
I was a student member during my undergrad.

It was fun because they (or, more precisely we) organised a lot of events,
even at national scale (I'm from Europe). I met a lot of different people from
different parts of my country who were also studying EE or similar and had the
same interests I did. A very wide network I now sometimes rely on because
those people now work in very different places compared to the people who were
in my class and now mostly work in the same city our university was.

However, I still remember a day someone asked for a paper and I was
disappointed when I found out I had no access as a Student Member. Luckily I
had access through the university library but it pissed me off.

No longer a member because it's not really useful in my field and I would have
to pay it myself. Membership fee in Europe is around 80% of USA but my salary
(I'm a junior) is around 30% of that of an average EE in the USA.

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caurusapulus
I am because my employer pays for it. I like it, but ACM probably is better.
ACM often organize webinars that I really find insightful. For instance, the
next one is "Succeeding with Large Scale Software Development Measurement
Programs". Often these webinars are hosted by both academic and practitioners.

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justanother
Was a Senior Member for years until they backed software patents and I quit. I
didn't get tons from it honestly, although it was fun to read Spectrum.

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derekja
I am, but only because the non-member registration fee at a conference at
which I was presenting was more than the membership + member registration.

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9wzYQbTYsAIc
IEEE membership is worth it, if you value being a member of professional
organizations, the opportunities for networking, and having a personal library
of magazines from the IEEE Societies.

Similarly, ACM membership and the Special Interest Groups.

Financially, ignoring any sentimental value, it likely isn't worth it unless
you are a student or work somewhere that pays for your membership. There are
occasionally conferences or seminars that you'll find worth attending that
will come at a reduced (or no) cost.

If you value being an active professional, then IEEE (or ACM) have plenty of
volunteer roles that span public speaking, administration, standards body, or
if you are so inclined and experienced, executive level work.

------
KineticLensman
I work in a company that sponsors membership of professional organisations. I
haven’t pursued these because it brings no benefits that are aligned with my
career goals. YMMV. Membership would not help me get assigned to more
interesting projects. I am not a second class citizen as a result, and at this
point in my career not looking for this type of kudos.

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alex_hitchins
I've been a member for around 7 years. I'm not all that sure I get the most
from it, however the magazine and articles are interesting and I'm happy to
support the organisation as I feel it does do good work overall. I'm not a
scientist nor do I have any scientific training/background. Just a very
interested outsider.

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petercooper
I do and it's not really been anything special, but my company pays for it.
Having an @ieee.org email address is kinda nice, I guess, their _Spectrum_
magazine is very well produced, and the journals I get in my disciplines are
OK. I like being a member but don't feel I get $400 worth or whatever it is.

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postwait
I am an IEEE member. I am not sure why anymore, mostly I think it is important
to support the industry.

I am also an ACM member and I find that very valuable. The community is good,
the policy engagement is good, the publications are excellent, and their
employer subsidy program is excellent. I work at Circonus and we pay for
everyone's ACM membership as an employee benefit (including the digital
library) and it makes each and every one a more valuable employee -- such an
easy investment to justify.

I am also highly active with the ACM. I am currently an ACM Member at Large,
so if anyone would like to see any changes within the ACM (and you are a
member) I'm here to represent you practitioners! The ACM Turing award (amongst
all the other distinguished awards) and very important to rewarding innovation
and progress in computing. The ACM is aces.

~~~
willio58
The industry is booming, it doesn't need your support besides what you
actually contribute in your work.

------
rajadigopula
I am a member of ACM and BCS for few years. BCS used to have access to EBESCO
host with few CS related databases where I used to read papers often, but the
service is now discontinued.So, I feel BCS is not worthy of subscribing. ACM
has Skillsoft and Safari online access which I use almost every week that has
LIVE and on-demand training on almost any tech subject. Although access to ACM
digital library is provided as a separate subscription which is available for
members at extra cost ($99), it's up to the member to see if it benefits them
to pay extra.I considered IEEE too, but it seems almost same as ACM interms of
member benefits, but it might be more inclined towards other engineering
disciplines than CS.

------
michaelmior
I was an IEEE member as a student for a while, partially because it gave me
significant discounts to certain conferences. Now that I have to pay the
professional membership fees, it doesn't feel worth it to me. I'm hanging onto
my ACM membership however.

------
Tade0
I used to have access to their publications as a student, provided by my alma
mater.

My sister got the most value out of this when she was writing her thesis,
since apparently IEEE also has a decent amount of material on agricultural
engineering.

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mindcrime
I'm not at the moment, but I have been on an on-again / off-again basis over
the years. Same for ACM.

What I'd kinda like to do is rejoin both and really work to get more people to
join who dislike the current way those organizations price access to their
archives of journal articles, conference proceedings, etc. and try to elect
leadership that will move more towards an open access model and make this
stuff more accessible to everybody.

If anybody is interested in joining such an initiative, please drop me a line.
prhodes@fogbeam.com

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gglitch
I’m chiming in because no one has mentioned yet that the $100/yr ACM level
includes complete access to Safari. That’s so valuable to me it almost feels
like a glitch in the matrix.

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erwan
I am a subscriber to all their publications through my library. I enjoy
reading these.

I don't think the membership is worth it. Or at least it's unclear what are
the benefits.

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prepend
I’ve been a member for at least 5 years because they offer group rates on
disability insurance. I was also a member back before ACA for group health
insurance plans.

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airbreather
As an electrical engineer that actually does electrical things they publish
some immensely useful information, eg The Color Book series.

Additionally they are regularly publishing information at the forefront of
contemporary thinking and practice.

They are at least 1000 times more useful than the national body in my country,
Engineers Australia.

------
acomjean
I’m not a member of ieee. Being in a tech centered urban area I found there
are users groups on Meetup that were giving interesting talks and meetings.
Though they seem to be slightly on the wane I found the talks and meeting
other developers interesting.

Acm announces there talks on meetup

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stephen_g
Was as a student, and then one year as a professional. But I didn’t really
seem to get anything out of it, so cancelled it...

I’d love access to the journal, but I don’t think that was included.

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Konnstann
I get access to most scientific publications through my employer, but I'm not
a member. I used to be a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society as a
student.

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itronitron
I did after graduate school for a year or two. If you want free access to
their publications, and don't have that through work, then it seems
worthwhile.

~~~
msravi
And the problem is that the membership doesn't give you access to their
publications. You've to pay separately for that.

------
selmat
I have membership in IEEE and Computer Society just for SkillPort access
(e-learning+books). Otherwise don't get any other benefits from it.

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PascLeRasc
My degree is in EE, and I'm not an IEEE member nor do I ever plan to be, even
if it was free. IEEE is one of those "pay-for-status" groups like National
Honor Society is with high schools. They're in the pocket of military-
industrial cubical farms like GE and Boeing and don't do much that's
interesting to me, and their recruiting during undergrad just gave me a bad
feeling.

