"Young, wild & free"? Student-(un)friendly fees at IP/IT conferences
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| Fancy fascinators are sometimes compulsory for those registering at the student fee |
Being a real fashionista, but also a full-time student, Merpel has always thought that she could not yet afford to buy a Boston Bag.
Now, she is a bit upset that she cannot afford to go to conferences either, being these more expensive that the said Boston Bag.
Although she is lucky that her academic institution grants her a yearly funding to attend learned events, the overall amount is not sufficient to cover a conference student registration fee fixed at EUR 650. Although she is not going to tell what conference she is referring to, Merpel has observed that such student-“friendly” fees are common to many events in the field of IP/IT.
As there are not many students carrying a designer handbag, she suspects that there are not many students actually attending these conferences either, and not because they would not be interested in doing so. OK, organising these events is expensive, but since there are already many corporate sponsors and attendees, wouldn’t it be possible to allow actual participation of students and young practitioners who may have to actually pay the registration fees themselves?
This does not mean that student attendance should be necessarily ‘free’ (as ‘free beer’), but at least that the choice to register or not should be free (as ‘free speech’) and dependent upon the professional/academic interests of the potential attendees, not denied ex ante because of registration fees most students/young practitioners could not afford to pay.
What is the bright side in this story? Well, now designer clothing and accessories look reasonably priced in comparison to such student registration fees ...
