Continuing Education for PE's
Continuing Education for PE's
(OP)
In some professions, continuing education (a minimum number of CEUs) is required to maintain one's license. Should this be extended to PEs?
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Continuing Education for PE's
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Continuing Education for PE'sContinuing Education for PE's(OP)
In some professions, continuing education (a minimum number of CEUs) is required to maintain one's license. Should this be extended to PEs?
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RE: Continuing Education for PE's
Engineering seems to be backwards in the classes available. Some professions have conferences and classes in resort locations or even cruise ships. Engineers seem to have conferences in New York in Feburary.
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
1. What's available
2. Value of what's available.
In my opinion only, there are a very limited number of courses out there for experienced engineers, and many of the options to obtain CEU seem to be more self-serving of some society than value to the engineer (such as participating in society meetings).
In other fields, such as education and accounting, there are many courses available to choose from.
I'm sure others will have differing opinions.
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
The only negative I see out of all this is those of us that have a PE license must deal with having to pay for courses or attend meetings that are typically not applicable to your discipline, and frankly result in a self serving environment for consultants and technical organizations like local chapters of PE's.
When various Boards began adopting professional development hours, the consultants and local chapters of the PE society came out of the wood work and started to bombard me with all types of seminars and courses, etc. I don't know about you but the local chapter of the Professional Engineering Society charges double the fee that I pay for membership in my technical society. What I find most interesting is that you can rack up a high number of PDH's by simply attending a 2-day conference, with most presentations dealing with information that does not really affect my discipline.
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
I certainly agree with the cynicism in this thread - the main people who gain from a compulsory number of hours per year are the training providers, and since the only ones who can give accreditation under this scheme are the PE organisations themselves, it becomes a lurk.
FWIW, if I spend less than 2 hours a week learning new stuff I get bored. Does learning about the design of rocket boosters help my cars steer better? No. Does someone who can learn how to design rocket boosters, from interest, design better suspensions? Yes.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: Continuing Education for PE's
What other organization would be suited to give accreditation? I don't really see any group that understands engineering and the needs of continuing education other than PE's. I have been involved in course review and have seen a lot of groups attempt accreditation, but fail, and rightly so. they attempt to apply courses like those applied to loftier careers, like teachers. From my experience, there are very few out there that understand what we do and what our needs are....
I agree with you though, I learn at every chance I get from management to particle theory as applied to light. I personally look at coninuing education for PE's as an additional TAX that will only turn more away from the profession. That is the last thing PE's need right now is another reason not to be a PE.
Bob
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
Maui
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
Maui
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
Speaks very poorly of our collective brainpower compared to MDs.
TTFN
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
The main squeeze gets mail all the time on things like a cruise from San Diego to Accapulco. Classes in the morning, fun in the afternoon. The accountants figure it out so most of it is deductable.
I have seen ones for conferences in Stateline during ski season and in Hawaii ( anytime of the year is good there).
They also work it out so an extra person (me) is bascially charged for eats and washing a few extra towels.
I just got a notice for an engineering seminar in Milwaukee next November.
There is a minimum you have to spend on CEs get a tax deduction, you don't get it going to vendors seminars at the local Holiday Inn.
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
RE: Continuing Education for PE's
My big problem is that, whilst I am registered in a US state and in a Canadian province, I have been working overseas for the last 10 years. Where do I go for CEUs in Urumqi China? In Vientianne Laos? in Georgetown Guyana? in Harare Zimbabwe? Even here in India where the top US schools are fallbacks to those who don't get in the IITs. Yes, I can attend conferences here, give papers at these, publish here and be an invited lecturer at an IIT - but do these meet the criteria of CEUs in US? Doubtful. I think this is all a big sham - some feel goods to show that engineering is doing something after a few failures.