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Q: "The College of DuPage Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society" is quite a mouthful; What exactly are you guys?
A: Simply put; We are the Weather Club of COD.Q: Who is allowed to be in this "Weather Club"?
A: Anyone who has an interest in weather and pays our annual dues of $15.00. Our title does say "Student Chapter" but this only means that the club must be run by students at COD. Membership IS open to the public, however with limited membership privileges (read our by-laws for details). Any member of the public that joins our club joins under the title of "community member", which essentially means that you may not vote on any club matters or take precedence over full members. "Full Members" are students who are currently enrolled in 6 or more credit hours per semester at the College.
Q: Who is in your club?
A: The majority of our members are Meteorology Majors at COD, although we do have a healthy mix of community members and other weather enthusiasts.
Q: What do you guys do?
A: Anything we can do that's fun, interesting and helps us achieve our goal. All we are here to do is provide additional knowledge, oppurtunities, and social interaction within the feild of Meteorology. We hold at least 6 meetings during the school year and also organize field trips and social events.
Q: When you say, "Social Events" what do you mean?
A: Most of the time this means simply going out to dinner after a meeting, often inviting our speakers out with us. This can be a great opportunity to ask more detailed questions of our speakers and tap into their area of expertise. It's also a great chance to get your name out there and your foot in the door. However occasionally we do like to just have some fun, mainly close to Finals Week when most of our members need a break. On these occasions we've done everything from bowling, to a Wii-MarioKart Pizza Party, to BBQ/Cookouts. We still cover basic club news at these meetings, but as you may imagine they are certainly less formal than our average meetings.
Q: What kind of field trips do you do?
A: We've done many. We've organized trips to Weather Conferences, taking a willing group of our members along, either paying for their registration or travel costs; on a few occasions we've paid for both of these expenses. In either of these situations, your food and miscellaneous expenses would be on your own dollar. Other than that, we've done simple local field trips, such as our trip to KARR to see NCAR's C130 Weather Craft, our trip to the Museum of Science and Industry, or our trips to the Chicago NWS office. We are always thinking of new field trip ideas. We feel they are great experiences.
Q: Do you guys do storm chases?
A: The official answer to that is, No. Not through the club. Most of our members are involved in the Storm Chase Program that is offered at COD. Since most of us are Meteorology Majors, the Storm Chase classes are an integral part of our course selection. However, just like our club the Storm Chase courses offered at COD are open to the public. If you have any interest in these courses, we strongly encourage you to visit the COD Storm Chase Page.
