ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTING MACHINERY

The Role of Professional Societies in Students’ Academic and Professional Development

In the world that we, i.e. the students of today, live in only two things matter: competence and professionalism. The best way to acquire both is by becoming part of a professional society, preferably based in your college.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Student Chapter at NCU is just such an outfit. ACM is the world's largest professional computing society. It is an educational and scientific society, uniting computing educators, researchers and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources and address the field's challenges. ACM strengthens the profession's collective voice through strong leadership, promotion of the highest standards, and recognition of technical excellence. It supports the professional growth of its members by providing opportunities for life-long learning, career development, and professional networking.

In other words, if your areas of interest intersect with the field of computing then a professional society membership in ACM will go a long way in helping you achieve your goal, whether that is landing the dream job, pursuing higher education in an eminent institute or simply research in this field. Being actively involved in a professional society can leave you with a number of real-life experiences that you wouldn’t otherwise be a part of.  Workshops covering a wide variety of subjects like Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Blockchain technology, Core Coding Languages e.g. Java, C++, C, Machine Learning, AI and many more relevant technological topics are conducted on a very reguar basis. These seminars and workshops are hubs of innovation and collaboration. By attending them you get not only to hear from the leading professionals in computing technology but also interact with them. In addition, you will also get the opportunity to network with other students having similar goals and interests. The networking that you do at these events can come in handy at some of the most crucial times of your life. And it is at these events that you understand the implications of what it means to ‘go out in the real world’. Here, partnerships are forged for building projects together or competing in Coding Competitions and Hackathons. In fact, the ACM ICPC is one of the most revered programming contests in the world. As a part of a student chapter you also get to help organise events. This helps one understand the concept of working as the part of a team and leading when needs be.

Professional societies are a student’s window into the real world. How to work with people from different backgrounds, how to be a good leader, how to organize large scale events, how to communicate well and how not to screw it up: all things that they will teach you. So that when the time comes, as it inevitably will, to impress an interviewer you will be ready and with hands on experience to back you up.  These are the main advantages to being the part of something as big as ACM. You will be transformed into a professional and with all the things that you get to learn, you become exceedingly competent.

 As concerns ACM, we are the experts on anything and everything to do with computing. And computers are by definition the most relevant thing today in professional and academic life. So, if you wish to pursue your interests in our neck of the woods, there really is no place better than ACM.