Student rates and not commenting
I usually blithely repost announcements on Beyond the Job without comment, whether or not I find something personally interesting or agree with its focus. But, this one made me snort coffee. I just gave a talk at UM-Milwaukee last week for their “Get That Job!” day about career building in a down economy, one part of which stressed free/low-cost professional development opportunities (including student rates and volunteer opportunities at conferences). So the topic’s been on my mind — then this crossed my inbox last night:
STUDENT DISCOUNT NOW AVAILABLE!
The Northeast Document Conservation Center Welcomes Students of Library and Information Science to join us at:
DIGITAL DIRECTIONS: Fundamentals of Creating and Managing Digital Collections
MAY 27-29, 2009
Westin San Diego
San Diego, CaliforniaCONFERENCE FEE: $700 (includes a Networking luncheon on Day 1 and the Conference Reception)
DISCOUNTED STUDENT RATE: $595 with a copy of a valid student ID (emphasis mine)
(See: http://www.nedcc.org/education/ddsdstudent.php for Student Rate instructions)
Coffeesnort! I haven’t been a student for a while, but in what world is $595 a good student rate? And here I was thinking the $140 ALA wants to charge was a bit high… No disrepect intended to NEDCC in particular (hey, it is $105 off the regular rate!) but especially in the current economy, I think some of these conference structures bear rethinking.
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