Piedmont Section Report
IEEE Region 3 Committee Meeting, April 2013

Most fun activity: Listening to the inside stories regarding interviews from
recruiters and managers. We hosted an event at Clemson during which there was
a lot of interesting conversations regarding what to expect during an
interview and how people are judged by the interviewer.

Most successful activity: This was the tour of St. Jude's Medical's
manufacturing facility in Liberty, SC. After a short presentation regarding
the technology, participants were given a detailed tour of the facility. Good
explanations and practical insights made this activity even more interesting.

Member Engagement Activities: Recruiting Student Members. The section
supported the Clemson IEEE Student Branch start up from a dormant state and
provided industry contacts for events. Several students joined IEEE this year.

Outward Activities: Members volunteered at the IEEE Electric Vehicles
Conference held in Greenville during March. Piedmont section has been judging
Clemson University ECE Department's final year projects. The section has also
initiated an annual scholarship for a student in the department starting from
this year.

Barriers: Distance is a considerable barrier. Also, due to the increasing
popularity of other networking options (websites, other groups and conferences
etc.), IEEE's popularity as a networking option has been decreasing over the
years. IEEE needs to become more relevant to the today's engineer. IEEE
Spectrum is now avialable freely online, earlier, this was only available to
IEEE members. Several other excellent tech news websites have come up. All of
this does eat up what IEEE used to offer to its members.

--
Githin F. Alapatt
Secretary, IEEE Piedmont Section
https://www.ces.clemson.edu/~galapat/