I’m one of the officers over at the UC student chapter of IDSA. Though I don’t think we are an official chapter yet. (Currently interning so im a bit of the loop till winter.)But we have had some of the same issues that the CMU chapter has had. Not sure if we have convince enough students to join IDSA. I thought it was a total of 10 students at $50 a piece not 5. But maybe I’m mistaken.
The only real benifit we can pitch is the National Merit Award and the national convention is in Cincinnati, so the discount is a bit more of a perk as well. Though like Linda and Targ have pointed out its a bit costly for most students to go and our funding can only cover a few students every year.
As for the national IDSA chapter, we, from what I have seen we have had good reaction from local professionals. It surprised me how many people where willing to take out time to give stop by and give lectures and speeches. However, I’m not sure how much the IDSA aspect was involved in those decisions, instead of just wanting to help out younger students.
We’re are really pushing for involvement from our local IDSA chapter, hoping we can kick off a solid relationship with them. From what I hear theres a lot of people wanting to do things, just not enough people asking. Its good to hear that other student chapters are trying the same thing. Hopefully, we student groups, can give a a jump start to to national chapters and start getting a bit more involvement.
p.s. We took some ideas from CMU’s chapter and begun building a website. http://ucidsa.com. However its still in rough shape and needs a bit of work.