MIET

I'm now officially a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) after an application process with rather a lot of unexpected to-ing and fro-ing from communications between my sponsor and the IET getting lost. So, I now have another group of letters to put after my name.

The biggest difference between the British Computer Society (BCS) and the IET is in their publications. The IET website and members journal (E&T) are a lot more engaging than the BCS website and its members journal (ITNow) - though ITNow has featured some passionate engagement recently (but I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive). E&T features engaging articles that go into depth, whilst ITNow articles often appear to be lightweight puffs for products and services by their authors. Also, at around 70,000 members, the BCS can only manage to produce a journal with a handfull of pages, whilst the IET with 150,000 members produces a monthly journal with much more than twice as many pages.

Whilst at university I had the choice between the BCS and the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) (who would later merge to form the IET). At that time I considered myself very much to be a computer scientist, not an electrical engineer.

After graduating (a few times) I saw no value in being a BCS member so I resigned.

After a few years I began to see myself as a software engineer, and that what I was doing was engineering. Since the BCS was a member of the Engineering Council I rejoined the BCS and eventually attained Chartered Engineer status. Unfortunately, I see less and less evidence of engineering in the BCS, whilst the IET certainly maintains its engineering face.