Over the years there has been a number of different reasons why I was an IEEE member, and why I served on the executive.
How I got started
It started when I was at Dalhousie University and was looking for a group to get involved with to help my resume and meet people in the industry. The IEEE Student Branch seemed like a great place to start, so I started volunteering as the Secretary and the local Section, Canadian Atlantic Section invites all students to attend their meetings which is where I started to meet the people that worked in the area.
IEEE members are great people to hang out with.
One of the activities that the student branch ran was a trip around the province to visit various companies from small manufacturing, pulp and paper mills and and power generation stations. This trip was a great time and opened my eyes wider on some of the benefits of an IEEE member.
From that point on I was a serial volunteer taking positions of Student Branch Chair (sorry Leo), section secretary, to vice-chair and regional newsletter editor and finally holding the Chair in Spokane.
That is my history as an IEEE member since 2002.
I'm a member because...
Mo El-Hawary
Some of the reasons to why I have continued with my membership has changed over the years, and others have acted in cycles. For example, when I first joined as a student, the major reason was to get to know some of the people in the industry that I was interested in entering, and possibly help get a position in the area, and when I moved to Spokane, while I already had a job lined up, I didn't know anyone from the area and IEEE was a great starting point.
IEEE has also afforded me the ability to travel all over North America, and meet amazing people and make life long friends, whether it was a student conference in London, ON or the sections congress in Quebec City, QC and San Francisco, CA.
IEEE membership has also allowed me to learn from the giants in the industry, whether it is discussing power system analysis from the people that write the seminal text books, or learning the challenges of building the life-safety system in the Mercury program from one of the lead engineers.
(Photo Credits:
Featured Photo - UCLA IEEE Student Branch
Second Photo - Section Congress 2008 Photo page
Third Photo - Sections Congress Facebook Page)