Look to Professional Associations to Find Scholarships in Your Major

Getting a college degree is the single best way to start many careers. Your future career can also help make that degree happen.

By becoming a student member of your field's professional association or organization, you can access scholarships and other resources to help you complete college, find a job in your field and continue your professional education.

Professional associations exist for just about any field of study you can think of, from accounting to zoology. If a quick online search of your major with the terms "professional association" or "professional organization" doesn't turn up anything, your advisers or professors should be able to point you in the right direction.

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Student memberships to these organizations are generally lower-priced than full, professional memberships, and some schools will even provide you a complimentary membership for a year. Whatever the cost, you get plenty for the money.

This article from CollegeParents.org lists a wealth of benefits, including networking opportunities, placement services, mentorship and an inside look at what life in a profession is really like.

What's more, nearly every professional association also offers scholarships, and many of those scholarships are open only to student members of the organization. As you start your school year, consider joining the professional group that represents your future career, and you'll find awards.

If you're technologically inclined, the Association of Information Technology Professionals offers student member scholarships from a couple of sources. Robert Half Technology co-sponsors a pair of $2,500 scholarships with AITP each year, and the Foundation for IT Education awards both national and regional awards to association members. Applications for the Robert Half scholarships are due March 1 each year, and you've got until May to apply for the FITE awards.

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Tech students should also look into membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the "world's largest professional association for the advancement of technology." IEEE represents a wide array of electronics and engineering professionals, and they award an equally wide array of student scholarships.

Awards range from $2,000 for "active leaders in the IEEE Computer Society Student Branch Chapters," all the way to the $24,000 Charles LeGeyt Fortescue Fellowship, given to an exceptional first-year graduate student in electrical engineering.

If your focus is on liberal arts rather than the sciences, you've got plenty of options as well. The Public Relations Student Society of America is made of 11,000 public relations and communications students from across the nation, and offers more than a dozen scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students in the field. Deadlines vary widely, so check the award eligibility chart to see where you might fit, and then find application details on each scholarship's page.

If you're looking to collaborate and learn, PRSSA's Bateman Case Study Competition also allows teams of students to put together a real-world PR campaign and compete for a $2,500 award.

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The Institute of Management Accountants, the association of accountants and financial professionals in business, will be hosting its 15th Student Leadership Conference this November, bringing together finance and accounting students from across the country.

The conference isn't for more than a month, but most of the group's individual scholarship applications and its team case study competition are open for application now. Award amounts range from $1,000 to $5,000. The association also offers the CMA Doctoral Scholarship, which allows qualified students to prepare for and take the CMA exam free of charge.

These are just a handful of the industries whose professional organizations provide scholarship and educational support opportunities to student members. Whether you're studying pharmacy, law or supply-chain management, students should find and join the professional association for their future career. The membership will likely pay off.

Matt Konrad has been with Scholarship America since 2005. He is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota and a former scholarship recipient.