Attending this important, once-a-year event for the overall architecture, engineering, construction, and owner (AECO) community can make all the difference when it comes to learning about important trends, networking with industry insiders, and benefitting from the knowledge of our colleagues. How can we help make it possible for up-and-coming AECO professionals to share this transformative experience?
A recent community entry by Caitlin Morgan, CSI-EP, CDT®, Associate AIA, sums up a common challenge: “I joined CSI a little under a year ago after graduating from college and am excited to be hearing about the CSI National Conference! As an emerging professional/recent college graduate, the overall cost of the conference, including the hotel stay, travel, and food, is daunting, so I am brainstorming ways to help reduce the costs with others in my position.”
Some of Caitlin’s ideas for managing costs included the following:
- Roommate pairing to split room costs
- Carpooling with those in the same area
- Bulk buying snacks and packing meals ahead of time to split food costs
- Pairing conference veterans with first-time attendees to ensure they get the most of every opportunity
Some CSI-Connect Community members suggest:
“This is a wonderful idea. It would be good to connect ‘EPs’ with 'conference veterans' for introductions and networking. It may be better to start roommate/carpooling conversations with your local chapter, but possibly the other emerging professionals would have ideas for connections.”
Ellen Onstad CSI, CDT®
“This is a wonderful idea, Caitlin. I'm an EP as well and am still considering the likelihood of attending the conference. I'm not sure how the EPs and veterans are paired up, but I certainly like this idea! Perhaps during conference registration there are a few checkboxes for willing participants and how many conferences the individual has attended.”
Julie Foley CSI, CDT®
“One way is to encourage them to ask their employer. My current and previous offices both have certain professional development benefits that allowed me to attend in years past. Another way is for the chapters to budget more money to send members. The Memphis Chapter does a good job of sending as many folks as possible. The president of the chapter gets everything paid for, and the remainder of that budget is split between whoever else is going.
I know that not all chapters have the funds to do this and not all offices are built the same. I would suggest a fundraiser. Maybe host an event that where the funds raised would go towards sponsoring students and EPs to attend.
Jeffrey Parnell
If you or someone at your firm is an emerging professional and is looking for ways to attend, please comment and connect! Use the link to log-in to the conversation.
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