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The Association of Government Accountants (AGA) Northern New Jersey Chapter is looking for students or recent graduates to become members of our chapter. The future of our chapter as well as the government financial management community ultimately resides with these individuals. There are many opportunities for personal development through service as an officer, director, or committee person at the Northern New Jersey Chapter - positions are currently available.
AGA is a professional association of more than 14,000 individuals working in federal, state and local governments as well as the private sector and academia.
Top Reasons Why College Students Should Be in Professional Organizations:
1. Test the Water
It’s perfectly normal and acceptable for students to change their majors in college at least once or twice. But it is also in the best interest of your bank account to change your mind earlier rather than later. If you aren’t positive about how in love you are with your major, what better way to figure it out, than to get outside of the campus bubble and see how it really looks in the real world?
2. Add to Your Education
Through award ceremonies, roundtable discussions or guest speaker presentations, professional organizations provide plenty of ways to simply learn about an industry. Why do you think so many established, successful individuals participate in them? It keeps them sharp and refreshed on current trends, new ideas and different approaches.
Even in less formal networking opportunities, there are many things to learn from talking with the best of the best in any industry. Listen carefully to the language they use to discuss their work, and the types of things that seem important to them. Chances are, information like this will be more valuable than the things you read in your textbook the day before your midterm exam.
3. Build a Portfolio
If you’re confident in the career path you’ve chosen, and checked out a few meetings of an organization already, it might be time to look for even bigger benefits. Professional associations are made up of volunteers – most of whom have day-jobs, families and social lives that matter, as well. In other words, the leadership is likely to be open to having some extra help.
There are a ton of things you can do to get involved with an association, and simultaneously grow your experience and portfolio. For example, offer to live-tweet the next event, write a blog post to promote it or distribute survey questions after the event to improve event attendance.
4. Network
Most importantly, professional associations are composed of your future boss, hiring manager and colleagues. In the ultra-competitive job market that young professionals face today, it’s no secret that the adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” rings true.
AGA Northern New Jersey offers a discounted annual membership fee of only $37.50 exclusively to full-time students and $52.50 for early career members. Get your career off to a great start by joining AGA Northern New Jersey Chapter now and we will waive the $7.50 chapter dues portion of the membership fee for the first year. As a result you will only pay $30 for students and $45 for early career.