Membership and Seminars Not Worth the Cost, Poor Communication and Customer Service

When you join ASCE, you realize they are a non-profit organization that values money first, membership second. Registered for a course and sent an email / made a phone call to ask for recommendations for a place to stay. They went unanswered and unreturned. Received an email that provided the wrong location for the seminar, stating it was at ASCE headquarters in VA, when it was in DC. Then the seminar was changed to virtual because attendance was low, which is problematic when non-refundable travel and hotel arrangements have already been made (again, they think about money, not the quality of a promised face-to-face seminar). The webinar was simply a cursory review of ASCE 7-22, and I tried several times during the seminar to speak with the host during breaks to have questions answered (something that was promised during the face-to-face seminar). I was told to email the host instead - a daunting task when the questions involve in-depth information contained in a 1000-page standard, turning a 30-minute conversation to clarify a standard into a multi-email, multi-page ordeal.

The cost of membership is not worth it unless your company is paying for it, and there are more cost-effective and productive ways to learn about the standards without having to go through ASCE. You will receive better support elsewhere.