Increasing Education Requirements 22

[3doorsdwn]

http://www.ncees.org/news/index.php?release_id=37

Above is a URL to an NCEES release where they discuss a proposal to raise the requirement for licensure to M.S. level. I have to admit I was surprised: I've heard this idea kicked around for Structural Engineers; but this makes it sound like they want to make it mandatory for ALL disciplines. I think that is a bit of a stretch. I have a hard time seeing why this should be required for a HVAC engineer or an electrical engineer.

I also think it isn't a good idea for structural engineers either (and I say that as someone who holds both a Masters and a PE). I don’t understand why any educational reforms cannot be made at the undergraduate level. If not by increasing the hours required, than why not reallocate the hours? If memory serves, as an undergraduate I had dozens of hours of English, Economics, and other non-engineering courses. Why not reallocate these hours into the engineering curriculum if the B.S. is now deemed inadequate?

It really disappoints me that ASCE and NCEES have proposed this idea. I think they (ASCE especially) have fallen for the idea that if you raise the educational requirements you will improve the perception of the engineering business (and thus) gets everyone’s salary higher (it’s not going to happen). Also, they think it’s going to reduce outsourcing by making licensure more difficult. That ignores one of the most critical aspects of outsourcing: many engineers registered here are stamping things designed overseas and (falsely) claiming they “oversaw” its design. If you raise the bar, you will still have the same thing happening (except you will have engineers with a masters degree making the same false claims). Overall, it’s just a bad idea. But that is typical for ASCE.

I can certainly see a company making this a requirement for employment there (based on the work they do); but a (legal) requirement for licensure? No way.

 

[zdas04]

See thread730-206434 for the last time this was kicked around.

David

 

[MJCronin]

3doors....

As an aging former PE, (no, I will not renew)I find this whole disconnect between the professional/licensing organizations and the real world... simply hysterical.

It seems that no one is really aware, or wants to discuss the ever-tightening noose being drawn around the necks of RPEs and other professionals by lawyers?

Contactors are now demanding the services of a PE.....AT THE FIELD SITE....to approve all of the day-to-day field changes commonly encountered...ON THE SPOT..!!! This ensures the contractor against any liability during construction

Contractors now attend seminars on how to groom and position themselves AGAINST THE PE inorder to win big claims at the end of the job.

Attorneys offer expensive seminars explaing how to posit questions in RFIs (Requests for field information) and how to win those big awards at job completion.

And now the NCEES is suggesting that the states require a Master's degree in order to become a target..???

What the heck ....go all the way... why stop at a Master's degree...??

I humbly recommend at least a PHD in engineering and 20 years experience before a state license is granted...!!

This modest NCEES proposal will certainly help our with
te refit and contrsuction of all of the power plants and refineries that must occur over the next 20 years....

Does anybody else out there sense a major disconnect with reality..??

My opinion only

-MJC

 

[TheTick]

Engineering is the only profession where you can reach professional status without a post-grad degree. We also complain the most about not getting the same respect as doctors and lawyers.

 

[EddyC]

The real problem is that the current generation of engineers will never be mentored. The proposed additional education coupled with the increasing use of codes with formulaic design methodologies is an attempt to mitigate the lack of mentoring. So the burden for knowledge acquisition will shift from the employers (who used to mentor) to the students/employees (ie the little guy/gal). Also, my experience is that master's degrees are sometimes a form of remedial education for poor undergraduate programs/degrees/students, rather than a true expansion of knowledge.

 

[dougantholz]

Tick - wrong - CPA's are allowed to take after their BS/BA. Architects - BS/BA.

As to the question at hand, I like the increased educational requirements, although I would be more in favor of adding years spent as an EIT or a masters degree rather than just a masters. I know that there are several things that I needed to know that I didn't get from a BS program. Some of those I learned from my boss, some I learned in class getting my masters part time.

As far as the education goes, if we took out all that "silly" english, history and arts we because technicians not engineers. It is important to understand that engineers rarely design the whole system. Many specialists get together to create the parts. In buildings, where I make my living, there are at least 7 or 8 professional disciplines who are routinely involved. Understanding the system as a whole makes me a better engineer than if I were say an bonafide expert in steel design.

From the educators point of view, there is more to college than learning differential equations. Hence the breadth coursework. Colleges will not go for allowing someone to get a BS where they only took math, science and engineering classes. I think that would also have a detrimental effect on the quality of the graduates, quite the opposite as some here posit.

 

[TheTick]

I'm not wrong about the complaining, though.

 

[KENAT]

As far as the education goes, if we took out all that "silly" English, history and arts we because (sic) technicians not engineers.

Um, assuming you meant "become" not "because" then does that mean every Engineering graduate from the UK (and I believe many other countries) is really only a technician?

In the UK most Engineers dropped English and the like at the age of 16 to concentrate on Maths, Physics and the like. Certainly there were very few non technical classes at university, and those there were still related to a career in Engineering (at least at my uni and I've never heard or read anything different). Even if you took an extra language like French or German it was technical French and German, not regular old conversational.

Then again the OP is related to PE, and my UK degree doesn't directly count toward EIT/FE/PE. Maybe that's why, because I didn't take the "history of rock & roll 101" & the like;-).

thread730-223913 also vaguely relevant.


KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[MechEng2005]

I don't think the NCEES is focusing the requirements for being licensed and trying to determine if applicants are qualified and able to perform the services available to licensed individuals. I get the impression they have other agenda or motives. Perhaps their motives are reasonable and account for factors I do not see, or the requirements they set are infact the best way of determining ability. However, I don't see it.

-- MechEng2005 (EIT, exempt industry, still have time to decide if I will go for PE)

 

[3doorsdwn]

Agreed MjCronin: the percentage of engineer's with PE's would undoubtedly go down as a result of this; and as you pointed out: the amount of work in the future won't.

Eddyc, you had an outstanding point about the lack of mentoring that has become prevalent in this profession. I think people hope an advanced degree will take the place of such "real world" mentoring. It can't and it won't.

 

[DonPhillips]

Douganholz, in Ohio, architect's must have a professional degree or a masters. Ohio State, for example, does not offer a professional degree so a masters is required. I know a few people with BS's from Ohio State when that changed in the early 80's who could not sit for their exams.


Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[zdas04]

The system is well and truly broken. Requirements for an ABET certification get progressively farther away from a system that encourages universities to develop competent engineers. If you read the NCEES debate about what is broken you get a strong feeling that the Masters requirement is a knee-jerk band aid to stick over a major hemorrhage.

My Masters program did absolutely nothing to fix the systematic deficiencies in the system. The program I took was all about truly esoteric arithmetic that may be crucial to some aspect of research, but even the R&D guys that I know couldn't do a Laplace or Fourier Transform 6 months out of school if you held a gun to their head.

Someone who went straight from a BSME to an MSME into a pipeline Engineer job (for example) would have no idea how to tell if a line was jurisdictional, how to select a pipe coating, what material was appropriate for the pipe, what codes were applicable, or how to select a pump/compressor/valve--just like someone with a BSME. They don't necessarily need to know how to do these thing, but they need to know how to find the answers (I kept all of my text books from under grad and graduate school, and there is absolutely nothing in any of them that would answer the questions above--I got my BS 28 years ago so this is not new).

The only "fix" is to interject some reality into a university education (Co-Ops work well for this, but I keep hearing that Ivory-Tower academics are steering students away from them) and for the "Responsible Engineers" in the industry to actually assume the responsibility and mentor new engineers (maybe a requirement that the PE that recommends someone to take the PE exam carry criminal liability for the recommender if the new-PE violates the PE laws in the first 5 years?).

The MS requirement is simply trying to fix an amputation with a "Flintstones Band-Aide".

David

 

[apsix]

Tick
" We also complain the most about not getting the same respect as .... lawyers."

'Lawyers' and 'respect' are not two words I often see in one sentence, unless there's a 'lack of' also included.
I think we envy their salaries, not the level of respect they command.

 

[B16A2]

I'm happy to see more education requirements for structural engineers. I got my bachelors from a top ten civil school, worked for 6 years with great mentors, saw how much I still didn't know, and am now going back for my MS at a top ten civil school and am happy I did.

BS doesnt give you enough coursework unless you want to be a structural who designs industrial dunnages or retaining walls all day.

In my experience, the people I saw complaining about the MS requirement were the ones who dont have challenging work, those who are ignorant about how complex codes have become, those who went to bad MS programs, and those who are just plain lazy.

 

[moltenmetal]

B16A2 said: "In my experience, the people I saw complaining about the MS requirement were the ones who dont have challenging work, those who are ignorant about how complex codes have become, those who went to bad MS programs, and those who are just plain lazy."

Wow, you really like to paint with the broad brush, don't you? I have a license, undertake VERY challenging work, am FAR from lazy, went to a VERY good MS program (in which I received ZERO instruction in relation to ANY codes or standards). And I still find the typical M.A.Sc. and just about every M. Eng. (coursework only) to be of very little value in relation to readiness to accept and competently deliver on the responsibities of licensed professional engineering. One to two years of proper mentored practice is FAR more valuable than anything they're going to get from the Ivory Tower!

The same threats exist here in Canada: in my experience, it's the academics who are lobbying hardest for the bump to a post-graduate degree requirement. Canada's P.Eng. licensure system consists of a Bachelor's degree from an accredited program, four years of mentored experience at least 1 yr of which mst be obtained in Canada, and successful completion of an ethics and law exam- but no license is required to work as an employee under a Certificate of Authorization. What, precisely, aside from the technical under-pinning of some sort of engineering specialization, would a Masters' degree add to that licensure system?

At my uni, in my accredited program, we had four non-technical electives: two from the social sciences, and two from the humanities. The rest was ALL engineering-related. At some schools the 1st year is undifferentiated by discipline, but at mine you were streamed to a discipline from day one. So the undifferentiated 2 years of undergrad pre-eng that I'm hearing about in the US is not permitted in Canada.

What I see missing from recent grads is practical. They lack calibrated commonsense and an awareness of the larger context in which they do their calcs and prepare their drawings. I do NOT see any need for post grad work. Indeed we don't pay any extra for post grad degrees here- we count it as work experience only.

 

[EddyC]

I wish that I had gotten my Master's degree. But as I reflect on it many years later, the program was highly theoretical (so was my Batchelor's). Whether one needs an advanced degree is dependent upon industry/employer/job function. It is not universally required. I think that the bigger problem is the fact that there are so many low-ball companies out there that are pulling down the entire engineering profession. Those who want to do a good job are being forced to complete against firms that do a "cheaper" job by employing folks of questionable credentials. As long as there is someone who can stamp the work, it can end up being done by anyone. Not all engineering work is subject to certification testing, to bring out its deficiencies. It is accepted on the "honor system" (PE stamp). I bet that there are a lot of hidden "landmines" out there waiting to be discovered.

 

[TheTick]

When a lawyer says, "Don't do that!", everything stops.

When an engineer says, "Don't do that!", the mayhem is just beginning.

 

[B16A2]

moltenmetal,
I think equating structural engineering and chemical engineering is completely wrong. Each sector has it's own quirks. If you want to extrapolate my observation in structural to chemical, I'm sorry, I have no idea if it applies.

 

[HgTX]

To back up a bit, architects may be able to have only a BS/BA, but that BS/BA is typically a 5-year program. With all the architect-bashing that happens around here, we're satisfied with less education than they have?

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[HgTX]

Related discussion at

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=223913&page=1#newpost

in case there's anyone here who doesn't read all the threads.

Hg


Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376