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Where Are All of the IT Fraternities?
SteakandcheeseUm asks: "Upon meandering around the net today, I was displeased to find that there seems to be a lack of professional academic fraternities that are dedicated to Information Technology or Computer Forensics students. Has anyone here ever come upon a group that does such a thing? Would anyone be interested in joining if one were to be founded?"
...the unemployment line.
*rimshot*
Thanks, I'll be here all week
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
Fraternities are about social networking and getting drunk at wild parties, not coding and playing HL2
Though I was not a member, a CS major that graduated the year before me was the president of a frat, and most of his pledges were involved at one point or another in our daily Medal of Honor between-class routine in the lab. Of course this was a small college, and "pledges" numbered less than half a dozen, as did my graduating CS class.
Chi Sigma Iota and Upsilon Pi Epsilon.
/ is the root of
AITP? My college seems to push for everyone to join this.
--- "End Of Line" - MCP
...Lambda Lambda Labmda?
/usr/games/fortune
Also known as HKN is a mix between a co-ed social fraternity and a student organization for Electrical and Computer Engineers. One must pledge to join, must be at least a Junior, and must be above a certain class rank. The organization has been around for over 100 years. My chapter (Beta Chapter at Purdue), was an underground society for a period of time. We run the lounge and snackbar in the EE building at Purdue, perform community service, have get togethers most fridays, have professionals come in and speak to us. It is quite an active organization, found at most top engineering schools. Remember, HKN, "The Nice Guys".
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
I joined a Frat, 6 years of my life spent wondering what day it was and what that foul tast in my mouth was... I loved it! Though it wasn't an all IT frat, lotsofus IT 'dOOdZ' were in it for exactly that, the comradery, the booz and the girls :)
And of course, when hiring, you'll easily call on someone you know from your past!
The Awful Truth
yes, frats are. Fraternities are not. Sorry you don't yet know the difference.
Sleep is for the weak.
his statement is the same as saying:
All Americans are fat.
I am very sorry that there are horrible frats out there that give Fraternities a bad name. It's not something I would pick a fight over, but im sure as hell not going to let that statement be said without voicing my own opinion. It hurts the whole greek system for everyone to think that Fraternities are like those worthless frats.
Sleep is for the weak.
Sigma Lambda Alpha Sigma Eta Delta Omega Theta???
how long until
Is it just me? I thought that frats were exclusivfely anti-IT. Back in the day when I was in college, the whole idea of an IT, a.k.a. 'Geek' frat was just against everything the comp.sci kids stood for. We stood for individuality, not conformity. We made fun of the frat people to no end. And we never felt we had to be part of a bigger group just to have a party and get wasted and/or lucky (yes, on the rare occasion, it did happen!!!)
;)
Today however, there are enough professional associations around if you want to feel part of a bigger community... get your MCSE if you like... then you'll be unique, just like everybody else
Now what I want to discuss, is how come there aren't any IT-centric unions? IT folk tend to work long hours and we don't necessarily get paid for it either, as my former boss said, "it's expected that you put in 60-80 hours a week and get paid for 40". That was one of the reasons that he's now my 'former' boss. But I digress...
Any ideas? Anyone???
Not a frat, in that it's co-ed and doesn't paddle incoming members, but Computer Science House at Rochester Institute of Technology is a house full of geeks: http://www.csh.rit.edu/
> making [...] business contacts
> the IT world doesn't really work that way
You're in for a surprise if you believe this. Unless you are content to be a code-monkey your whole life, you will need to sell yourself and you will need contacts. The more the better. Every GOOD job I've ever had came through a personal contact. The lousy ones came through recruiters. Now that I run my own business I would starve to death without contacts.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Geeks already have many fraternities.
Here, we call this one Slashdot. There are other, smaller, close-knit fraternities all over the place as well that massquerade as Linux/BSD user groups, mailing lists, IRC channels, web forums, and newsgroups.
(Point being that geeks are no less capable of socilization, organization, and banding together for a cause, they just prefer to do so through primarily electronic means. There are also cons that are sorta like ad-hoc fraternities, when you think about it.)
First, he's talking about a professional society, like Eta Kappa Nu (The Electrical Engineering Professional Honor Society), not about a Social Fraternity.
Secondly, please don't use "frat", many Fraternity men tend to find it offensive. It implies a group like you see in Animal House, which despite public opinion is the minority of Social Fraternities. You wouldn't shorten "Country" to "cunt" would you?
As for why you would want to join a fraternity, well it depends. At some major Engineering Schools over a third of the campus is in a Greek Social organization. Different organizations tend to offer different things. The basic idea of a fraternity is that a diverse group of guys gets together and pools their cash and their tallents to generally make college life easier and hopefully supplement your education so that you are more likely to succeed latter in life.
Going Greek was the best decision I ever made. I strongly encourage everyone who is in college to look into it. If none of the organizations on campus fit what you want, get some guys and start your own.
The policy of the United States is worse than bad---it is insane. -- Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy(1959)
Gee doesn't slashdot fill that bill? Maybe there should be an international slashdot conference. All we need is a big enough hall someplace that has 20,000 pizza places, 10,000 Chinese places, 9,000 sushi places, and 45 OC-3s. Could be interesting when you show up you type in your user name and password and it prints a tag with your name color coded for your level of karma. You get a special tag if you have ever had a story accepted and a special tag if you ever complained about a story not being accepted. Of course your nick would not be on the tag to protect your privacy unless you want it. And the place would be swamped with WiFi.
The break outs could be something like this. Karma whoring 101. Anime vs Manga. Linux for the complete genius. Do tin foil hats really stop the black helicopters. How to hide what you are doing from the Government. And Atari vs Commodore. SCO against or you are stupid mindless git.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
;-)