BCS Membership

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Hi All
as some of you may know, I was once a member of the BCS and I've now been told that work would pay for me to rejoin. I just wondered if we have an BCS members on this forum and what your opinions are? When I was a member I felt the organisation was going from strength to strength but at the time I was focusing on my engineer career and felt I would be better spending my money on exams and study material.
Cheers
JK

 

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I've been a member since 2008 or 2007, tbh, in the last couple of years, I haven't really used any of the "features"/benefits, but that is due to work and studying (and not keeping up to date with the BCS). I do keep it though for 2 reasons:

1. To keep my Chartered status active (CITP) and
2. To show the support of the IT Profession.

To a lesser extent as I'm not actively currently looking, it does look good on any applications forms/CV's - especially those that list membership of a professional body a desirable feature ;)

 

Cheers Ken, exactly the kind of feedback I was after mate. I've been in touch and I've lost my CITP status. I'll need to join as a professional member and then look to upgrade which is fine. I passed it a few years ago so hopefully do the same again. I might get a new card through the post too, the last two were really cool I thought.

 

BCS Professional membership renewed this afternoon. £136 not £130 as advertised as their prices need updating. I'll log in tomorrow to see what I need to get back to CITP. I checked earlier but I didn't have all of the options yet.

 

Glad you renewed, not good about the price though...

 

Yeah I called them and they said they needed to update their site as prices had recently gone up. Hey ho not a big difference. I think this time I'll try to take more advantage of what they have on offer mate

 

Just my personal experience. When I went for mine in 2009 I think it was, I filled in the forms, had a phone interview and then had to setup a video conference with two professors who grilled me on my experience and IT knowledge, so for me, I'd say they VET people extremely well. I would imagine however that I was randomly selected for that, or possibly I only just made the grade at that time. It would be very time consuming to do that every time but I was definitely put through my paces on that one.

 

FYI £136 is effective from the 1st of May so they have been in touch to refund me £6. Very decent of them

 

No worries Rob, and I can't say for sure if the odd person doesn't need to get grilled as I did, just my experience.

I have lost my CITP but I'm just filling in the forms to get it back. I have stayed in IT and worked in a few roles since I last got it so hopefully get it back. I think it's a good thing, especially if your employer will fund it for you but even if they won't, I do think the BCS is going from strength to strength by the looks of things

 

Just filled out my application to upgrade to CITP again and it says an additional £160. I'm not sure if that's correct as I was a previous CITP so I've emailed support. I don't suppose anyone has done what I've done and would know?

 

I always thought that but checking I can see there's a group in my area I might join. They hold an AGM and a few meetings each year with a free buffet so sounds good to me ha ha The talks in my area look quite interesting too, last being cloud computing with Rasberry Pi

 

Sounds really good that mate, get your name out there a bit more. I think I'm going to try and get on my local committee. I'm at an age now where I fancy something like that to give me something to do out of work.