Engineering at Dordt College

Most of the engineering students here at Dordt College are members of a professional society. (All of the engineering faculty are too.) The most active professional societies in our engineering department are the “Dordt College ASME Student Section” and the “IEEE Dordt College Student Branch.” (links to ASME and IEEE headquarters) Membership in a student section is inexpensive, as low as about $15 to $30 per year or maybe even free, depending on various options you select. (Regular membership starts at over a hundred dollars per year for non-students. I’m a member of the IEEE so this blog posting is inevitably somewhat IEEE-centric, but the ASME has equal stature.)

Benefits of membership are primarily magazines and meetings which inform you of what is happening in the engineering discipline. I can’t help sharing a particularly fun recent example of a an IEEE “Spectrum Online Magazine” article, “the Future of Music.”

the Future of Music
A waveform from the late 80s / early 90s

A waveform from now

Click here to Read, hear, and see all of the “multimedia magazine” article, “the Future of Music” from IEEE Spectrum Online. (The link works best if you have Flashplayer installed. If you don’t have flashplayer, you can read it in text only.)

The above article is available without membership. Much more is available with membership. For example, IEEE Xplore gives online access to IEEE professional journals. You can browse the list of journals & magazines as a guest–and that’s just the IEEE. The ASME has many publications too. (Student members do not get access to all possible journals. It depends on what you subscribe to, but a basic set of magazines and journals is included in student membership.) In addition to the magazines, these professional societies hold on-campus, regional, national, and international meetings. Student membership entitles you to attend these meetings free or at low cost.

When engineering students look for an internship or a full-time job upon graduation, professional society membership has proven value. By attendance at society meetings engineering students meet engineers in industry, giving the students a pretty good idea of what type of work is available and what type of companies they might like to work for. Professional societies also offer various employment resources like the IEEE Career and Employment Resources, and the ASME Career Center. (Note that student members may post their resumes with their professional society.)

Most of Dordt’s engineering students and graduates are participating members of engineering societies, bringing their Christian values to the venues where engineers meet to discuss priorities, make decisions, and set new standards.