For many moons, I’ve been a member of both the ACS (American Chemical Society) and APS (American Physical Society), the former for ten or more, the latter for a few.  As a theoretical chemist, having a membership to these societies was quite useful. You get a subscription to a very good “popular” magazine, Chemical and Engineering News and Physics Today, discounted registration at conferences, and, perhaps most importantly, access to the respective job banks.

All this, though, comes at a cost. When you are a grad student and recent postdoc, the membership cost isn’t too expensive and the benefits well outweigh the costs.  But once you are a “professional member” the costs double–I think–at least to $140 and $118 per annum.

Okay, that’s not bad, not great, but not horrible. *But*, I am no longer a practicing chemist/physicist. I’m a code monkey. A membership to IEEE or ACM would make more sense, really. Heck, I’m kind of attending SC09, the supercomputing conference, next weekend.

But, but, but. I am a chemist. I am a physicist (according to Feynman, no less). I still think of myself as such and I suppose a part of me thinks one day I might be a practicing chemist/physicist again.

I’m not sure what to do.