Relevant Conferences and Organizations
Attending conferences is a great way for students to network with professionals and students from other schools, learn about research and graduate school, stay up-to-date on innovations in the field, learn more about a specific area of interest, and meet potential employers. Most conferences have information booths run by company sponsors who are looking to teach people about their company and available jobs. It's a great way to get a list of companies you might want to apply to and learn more about what they do, or even about new products you might want to use for your own projects.
Most conferences do charge a fee to attend. Typically, there are discounts for students and discounts if you become a member of their organization. Some conferences look for volunteers in exchange for discounted or free admission - check out the specific conference website or email a member of the conference committee to find out more. Many conferences occur every year, and they take place in a different location each time. Keep that in mind and keep checking their websites because there might be a conference you're interested in that takes place in a location that makes it difficult for you to attend one year but the following year may be easier.
There are some scholarships available for students to apply to:
ACM-W offers scholarships for women studying computer science to attend many of their conferences.
The Tapia Conference celebrates diversity in computing. They offer scholarships to students who are part of an underrepresented group in computing or to those who work with students historically underrepresented in computing.
The Grace Hopper Conference for women in computing offers scholarships and volunteer opportunities for students.
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - called "I triple E") hosts many conferences each year focused on different areas of interest within CS and electrical engineering. Students can sign up to become a student member online and receive access to more events, online discussions, research, etc. Membership also usually reduces the fees to attend conferences. There are also resources and events dedicated to students in the northeastern U.S. (IEEE's region 1) that can be found on their website here. Additionally, there is a specific IEEE website for New York. These are great resources to network with other students and professionals nearby and to learn about new innovations and industry trends.
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) is the other big organization for CS conferences and research. They have student membership options here. If you are interested in graduate school or research, it is a good idea to check out the ACM publications and start to find some topics you are interested in. ACM also hosts a lot of conferences that specialize in different areas of computer science. ACM-W is a specific subgroup for women in computer science with student chapters and scholarship opportunities to check out.
The Grace Hopper Celebration is an annual conference for women in computing (anyone is welcome to attend). It is a very popular conference, with over 20,000 people attending, so it is a great way to network with awesome women in the field (if you don't know who Grace Hopper is, you should learn about her, she's amazing). It is hosted by the Anita Borg Institute, and anyone interested in issues around diversity and women in computing fields should read about the institute and follow their events. The conference offers scholarships and volunteer opportunities to help students attend. Check the conference website for up-to-date information on how to apply. Since this conference is so large, many employers and graduate schools attend each year. It is a great way to learn about graduate programs in computing fields. But it is also a great way to apply to and potentially interview with several companies at once. If you attend the conference, you can submit your resume to a database before the conference. Employers look through the database and choose candidates to interview. You will be contacted with an interview schedule that will occur during the conference at the conference site, making it easy to interview with multiple companies from across the country/world.
If you are interested in computer science education, there are several strong conferences in the field. ACM hosts Interaction Design and Children (IDC) with presentations on new technologies for children and research on learning CS. Another big conference in the education field is CSCL (Computer Supported Collaborative Learning), which happens every other year. These are both good conferences to attend if you are interested in pursuing graduate studies related to computing education, teaching, or learning.
NSBE's convention site is here.
You can find a full list of all the pages on the Handbook here.....
