By-Product Theory and American Physical Society

 A couple of weeks ago, I had to head down to UNC Charlotte to present on the research I did this summer. Since it was my first time presenting at an APS meeting, I wanted to make sure I had everything in order before I got to Charlotte. So about a week prior I went about registering for the event. To my surprise, the cost of attendance for a non-APS member student was $60 while that for a member student was $15. Student Membership to APS costs $25 annually, so naturally I signed up as a member, and then proceeded to buy the discounted ticket, saving me $20 on cost of attendance. 

Almost every other student I spoke to also signed up on the APS member ticket, which I thought was a really cool example of Olson’s By-Product Theory that we spoke about in class last week. In this case, the primary good being the lower cost of attendance at a conference, and the by-product being APS membership.