Engineering Becoming an engineer with no degree?

[JakeBrodskyPE]

It seems like the entire education system is messed up. To me, it seems like it would be better for me to lie on a resume, after some of the things I've seen. Isn't it illegal to call yourself an engineer without have passing the PE or something like that? I was wondering why some schools promise a 6 week engineering degree.​

You can be an engineer without a PE certificate in the US. However, if you consult or have a name of the firm with the term "Engineering" in it, you'd better have at least one PE on staff to review and take responsibility for the plans you are proposing.

I was an engineer for many years before I bothered to get the PE certificate.

As for the educational system, it does what it is intended to do. People have many mistaken notions of what that intention really is. In practical fields such as engineering it is intended to expose the student to the theory in the vague hope that they'll figure out what to do with it. However, engineering is mostly a hands-on sort of work. Those who do not have a practical exposure to the methods used for prototyping or fabrication are a danger to anyone who reads their plans. If you think that all you need is school before you actually practice real engineering you are gravely mistaken.

The school is mostly so that a human resources bureaucrat who doesn't know a damned thing about engineering can sort out appropriate candidates for the job. As such, the degree does its job by opening doors. Nevertheless, the educational system is not an indicator of common sense or knowledge. It merely shows that you are capable of learning about theoretical abstractions.

 

[mpresic]

Many, years ago (> 40) , I knew of engineers that did not have engineering degree. In those days they probably had inside connections and they certainly did not go through HR. I believe those days are gone forever. Even some engineers with degrees have some difficulty getting jobs these days.

 

[StatGuy2000]

You can be an engineer without a PE certificate in the US. However, if you consult or have a name of the firm with the term "Engineering" in it, you'd better have at least one PE on staff to review and take responsibility for the plans you are proposing.

I was an engineer for many years before I bothered to get the PE certificate.

As for the educational system, it does what it is intended to do. People have many mistaken notions of what that intention really is. In practical fields such as engineering it is intended to expose the student to the theory in the vague hope that they'll figure out what to do with it. However, engineering is mostly a hands-on sort of work. Those who do not have a practical exposure to the methods used for prototyping or fabrication are a danger to anyone who reads their plans. If you think that all you need is school before you actually practice real engineering you are gravely mistaken.

The school is mostly so that a human resources bureaucrat who doesn't know a damned thing about engineering can sort out appropriate candidates for the job. As such, the degree does its job by opening doors. Nevertheless, the educational system is not an indicator of common sense or knowledge. It merely shows that you are capable of learning about theoretical abstractions.

Engineering programs that I'm familiar with in Canada often include strong component of lab work which presumably incorporates a lot of the practical exposure to the methods for prototyping and fabrication you speak of. Furthermore, there are schools such as the University of Waterloo which require its engineering students to participate in co-op work placements, whose very purpose is providing practical work experience of exactly the kind you feel every engineering graduate will require, on top of meeting part of the practical experience requirements mandated by the different provincial regulatory bodies before someone can be certified as a P.Eng. (the Canadian equivalent of the PE, which is required to work as a certified engineer in Canada).

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Engineering programs that I'm familiar with in Canada often include strong component of lab work which presumably incorporates a lot of the practical exposure to the methods for prototyping and fabrication you speak of. Furthermore, there are schools such as the University of Waterloo which require its engineering students to participate in co-op work placements, whose very purpose is providing practical work experience of exactly the kind you feel every engineering graduate will require, on top of meeting part of the practical experience requirements mandated by the different provincial regulatory bodies before someone can be certified as a P.Eng. (the Canadian equivalent of the PE, which is required to work as a certified engineer in Canada).

...and that's also the case in most Engineering schools in the US for at least the last 30 years.

The problem is that no matter how hard we try, we can't seem to manage to bring the real world into the classroom. The decisions, the technologies already in use, the failure modes, and the cost considerations are all a factor that I've never seen any school combine into one project. Not one of the senior design prototypes in my electrical engineering class would have been suitable for much of any practical use. Between a lack of resources, experienced teachers, and a highly compressed time schedule, there simply isn't enough opportunity to bring the real world into the classroom.

It takes years to bring a fresh graduate up to speed where they can be trusted with even a small project. They have to make their mistakes, and show that they learn from them. They have to learn how to work on teams. They have to learn how office politics play into projects. I often wonder how many people leave the field because they thought they could live the life of a hermit, drawing designs in a cubicle. The real world is not like that at all.

 

[clope023]

The problem is that no matter how hard we try, we can't seem to manage to bring the real world into the classroom. The decisions, the technologies already in use, the failure modes, and the cost considerations are all a factor that I've never seen any school combine into one project. Not one of the senior design prototypes in my electrical engineering class would have been suitable for much of any practical use. Between a lack of resources, experienced teachers, and a highly compressed time schedule, there simply isn't enough opportunity to bring the real world into the classroom.

It takes years to bring a fresh graduate up to speed where they can be trusted with even a small project. They have to make their mistakes, and show that they learn from them. They have to learn how to work on teams. They have to learn how office politics play into projects. I often wonder how many people leave the field because they thought they could live the life of a hermit, drawing designs in a cubicle. The real world is not like that at all.

I find your line of reasoning ironic, since you've basically said playing with amateur radio equipment is better than getting a degree (yes I'm partially straw manning you, but the point stands). Because you haven't seen something doesn't mean it doesn't exist; I've worked on and seen several senior design projects that brought the real world very much into the classroom. I had to deal with a lack of resources, lack of funds, and a lack of experienced teachers while working as a team member for an amateur radio satellite (variant of a cube-sat) that brought together bits of pieces of most sub areas of EE while in a compressed time schedule. The thing was completed by another team that did a great job and it will be launched to collect data from LEO and beamed to a ground station this year or next year, seems practical to me. I've seen quite a few undergrads that meet all of your criteria for being put in charge of small projects. Things are very different from when someone your age was an undergrad.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Yawn. Kids these days. Yes, the technology has changed, but the practicalities and bureaucracies have not.

When I first got into ham radio, a half dozen guys who were interested would gather together in basements and garages to build ham radio satellites. One of those creations is still functioning today, decades after it was first launched (OSCAR 7). The technical challenge of building to a clean sheet of paper is interesting and instructive. However, it is trivial, especially when dealing with something that is basically a one-of creation. More to the point, they didn't have professors telling them how it should be built. They just did it using the technical papers published from the earliest spacecraft experience, their own educated guesses, and practical know-how.

I had many mentors in my ham radio experience. Most hams these days are happy just to know how to assemble a station. I went beyond that. I had experience working in a two-way radio repair shop. I had help designing microwave radios, spread spectrum systems (long before the IEEE 802.11 standards), packet radio, and so on. I did this in 1980 and 1981 as a junior and a senior in high school. I built a crystal phase-locked 10.250 GHz transceiver. I had an early packet radio system built around the W0RLI Terminal Node Controller. I studied electronic warfare systems in my summer internship at Naval Research Lab. I studied and constructed experiments in audio compandering, narrow band integration of slow CW signals, early micro-processor systems, and many other things. By the time I got to college, I'd already seen and done many times more than most people would ever get in their entire college experience.

Yes, some of the finer points of semiconductor physics were interesting. The Fluid dynamics class was interesting too. However, the math was mostly stuff I'd already seen in another form. The signals class would have been much more interesting if the instructor were worth anything. Thankfully I had a lot of practical intuition from my earlier experience to throw at that class that got me through it.

However, today, when designing half a dozen chemical feed systems for a large water treatment plant that must be reliable, economical, intrinsically safe, secure from cyber attack, coordinated with concurrent projects, integrated into existing control systems, and built on existing infrastructure --that's a completely different issue. In many ways it is far more difficult than putting a satellite in space.

By the way, that's a small project. Don't get me started on what larger ones are like. The technical part is often the easiest and simplest aspect to all this. It's the other stuff that tends to drive everyone nuts. THAT is why it takes so long to bring a graduate up to speed.

Those of you who think that Engineering is all technical are living in a dream world. If it were just technical schools might not be so far up the back side of the power curve. It's the social and decision making processes that are most daunting. I have yet to find a school that can teach those things.

 

[clope023]

Yawn. Kids these days. Yes, the technology has changed, but the practicalities and bureaucracies have not.

When I first got into ham radio, a half dozen guys who were interested would gather together in basements and garages to build ham radio satellites. One of those creations is still functioning today, decades after it was first launched (OSCAR 7). The technical challenge of building to a clean sheet of paper is interesting and instructive. However, it is trivial, especially when dealing with something that is basically a one-of creation. More to the point, they didn't have professors telling them how it should be built. They just did it using the technical papers published from the earliest spacecraft experience, their own educated guesses, and practical know-how.

I had many mentors in my ham radio experience. Most hams these days are happy just to know how to assemble a station. I went beyond that. I had experience working in a two-way radio repair shop. I had help designing microwave radios, spread spectrum systems (long before the IEEE 802.11 standards), packet radio, and so on. I did this in 1980 and 1981 as a junior and a senior in high school. I built a crystal phase-locked 10.250 GHz transceiver. I had an early packet radio system built around the W0RLI Terminal Node Controller. I studied electronic warfare systems in my summer internship at Naval Research Lab. I studied and constructed experiments in audio compandering, narrow band integration of slow CW signals, early micro-processor systems, and many other things. By the time I got to college, I'd already seen and done many times more than most people would ever get in their entire college experience.

Yes, some of the finer points of semiconductor physics were interesting. The Fluid dynamics class was interesting too. However, the math was mostly stuff I'd already seen in another form. The signals class would have been much more interesting if the instructor were worth anything. Thankfully I had a lot of practical intuition from my earlier experience to throw at that class that got me through it.

However, today, when designing half a dozen chemical feed systems for a large water treatment plant that must be reliable, economical, intrinsically safe, secure from cyber attack, coordinated with concurrent projects, integrated into existing control systems, and built on existing infrastructure --that's a completely different issue. In many ways it is far more difficult than putting a satellite in space.

By the way, that's a small project. Don't get me started on what larger ones are like. The technical part is often the easiest and simplest aspect to all this. It's the other stuff that tends to drive everyone nuts. THAT is why it takes so long to bring a graduate up to speed.

Those of you who think that Engineering is all technical are living in a dream world. If it were just technical schools might not be so far up the back side of the power curve. It's the social and decision making processes that are most daunting. I have yet to find a school that can teach those things.

Yawn, jaded old men these days. I know Engineering isn't all technical, I work at a national lab and am aware of the bureaucracy that comes with funding, vendor and collaborator politics which holding back projects that'd otherwise be relatively simple to implement. There's an informal fallacy called moving the goal posts, where you basically said nothing practical is done in colleges, than I gave you an example of a practical project done in an academic setting and you're basically saying it doesn't count because you did the same thing outside of an academic setting. Clearly you didn't just play with equipment; but most people, regardless of prior interest or not, would only get the opportunity to come close to accumulating your (impressive) breadth of experience in a college setting where the departments have the resources and labs for research opportunities or connections to outside internships. Especially if a student became interested in engineering later in life and didn't have experiences like yours. I know fairly well that lots of people graduate with the word engineering in their degree's name who are by no means qualified to do engineering work of any sort, that definitely needs to be fixed, but that doesn't diminish the usefulness of a university engineering education as a whole.

 

[rude man]

So, I don't have a degree, but I was curious if companies would hire me as a process engineer.

I understand calculus, diff. Eq, probability theory, statistics, and PDEs. I love thermodynamics, microbiology, immunology, as well as chemistry (above organic).

I guess the problem for me is getting past the HR. They usually just think I'm lying on my resume. Is it possible to just get the FE exam passed in any state without working as a tech for several years?

This was not uncommon 50 years ago but since then large companies especially will probably not hire you as an engineer without a 4 yr. degree. Why not just get one? Accelerated programs exist; you should beble to complete an accredited one within 2 - 2 1/2 yrs.

 

[Vanadium 50]

One learns a lot of engineering on the job. One learns a lot of the practice of medicine on the job as well, Nonetheless, we insist that our physicians have a medical degree. I don't think it's crazy to apply the same requirement to engineers.

 

[TyPie]

This was not uncommon 50 years ago but since then large companies especially will probably not hire you as an engineer without a 4 yr. degree. Why not just get one? Accelerated programs exist; you should beble to complete an accredited one within 2 - 2 1/2 yrs.

I thought the accelerated ones were kind of jokes. Like where they promise to teach you quantum and fluid mechanics in one month to become an engineer.

One learns a lot of engineering on the job. One learns a lot of the practice of medicine on the job as well, Nonetheless, we insist that our physicians have a medical degree. I don't think it's crazy to apply the same requirement to engineers.

As a scientist yourself, if you strongly believed that some one was going to die without immediate help, would you not attempt to help them? There are paramedics that won't take a stretcher on the green at a golf course, because it's against the rules. Are you really no different from those paramedics? Do you not know how to perform a simple tracheotomy? Do you atleast know enough to attempt CPR? Are you CPR certified?

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

There's an informal fallacy called moving the goal posts, where you basically said nothing practical is done in colleges, than I gave you an example of a practical project done in an academic setting and you're basically saying it doesn't count because you did the same thing outside of an academic setting. Clearly you didn't just play with equipment; but most people, regardless of prior interest or not, would only get the opportunity to come close to accumulating your (impressive) breadth of experience in a college setting where the departments have the resources and labs for research opportunities or connections to outside internships. Especially if a student became interested in engineering later in life and didn't have experiences like yours. I know fairly well that lots of people graduate with the word engineering in their degree's name who are by no means qualified to do engineering work of any sort, that definitely needs to be fixed, but that doesn't diminish the usefulness of a university engineering education as a whole.

You have it backwards. Could one learn at least some of the technical aspects of Engineering in a school? I suppose it is possible even though the institution is stacked against it. My point is that I have found many opportunities outside that setting that worked better. One should not need to pay enormous sums of money to be institutionalized for the purpose of "learning" something. That is what infuriates me. I think a lot of what passes for a formal education is a damned bureaucrat driven Ponzi scheme. Some day I expect people will look at it and ask whether this is really working as effectively and economically as it should. I think we both know what the answer to that question would be.

When it comes to practical applications, it is most instructive to start from a bottoms-up approach. I've seen both top-down and bottoms-up in real life. I have seen a lot more success from evolutionary bottoms-up projects than revolutionary top-down projects. Unfortunately, schools teach the latter, while what is needed far more frequently is the former. The top-down approach works best when there is experience from what was done before and where things need to improve. In other words, top-down approaches work best later in a career, not straight out of college.

My other point was that we are teaching on the job anyway. We regularly train and update our skills. The organizations that don't keep pace are doomed to fail. The additional overhead of bringing a high school graduate into the fold to teach the more basic technical things is quite minimal. In fact, a refresher for regular staff might be a good thing. During that time, the student learns and applies those concepts right away to reinforce them. Those who are capable of making the most use of that education will find ways to move up through the organization. Organizations that can afford to offer the best opportunities will have better employee retention, loyalty, and productivity than those that can not.

Instead what actually exists today is an HR-driven pigeon-holing process that prevents upward mobility. Looking at educational institutions to remedy that situation is like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The real problem are policies incapable of reflecting what a person has done, and can do, not the formal education.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I actually do know CPR, although I do not hold a certification in it.

But in medicine seconds count. I know of no situation where there was engineering to be done, and it had to happen before one could locate an actual engineer.

 

[TyPie]

You have it backwards. Could one learn at least some of the technical aspects of Engineering in a school? I suppose it is possible even though the institution is stacked against it. My point is that I have found many opportunities outside that setting that worked better. One should not need to pay enormous sums of money to be institutionalized for the purpose of "learning" something. That is what infuriates me. I think a lot of what passes for a formal education is a damned bureaucrat driven Ponzi scheme. Some day I expect people will look at it and ask whether this is really working as effectively and economically as it should. I think we both know what the answer to that question would be.

When it comes to practical applications, it is most instructive to start from a bottoms-up approach. I've seen both top-down and bottoms-up in real life. I have seen a lot more success from evolutionary bottoms-up projects than revolutionary top-down projects. Unfortunately, schools teach the latter, while what is needed far more frequently is the former. The top-down approach works best when there is experience from what was done before and where things need to improve. In other words, top-down approaches work best later in a career, not straight out of college.

My other point was that we are teaching on the job anyway. We regularly train and update our skills. The organizations that don't keep pace are doomed to fail. The additional overhead of bringing a high school graduate into the fold to teach the more basic technical things is quite minimal. In fact, a refresher for regular staff might be a good thing. During that time, the student learns and applies those concepts right away to reinforce them. Those who are capable of making the most use of that education will find ways to move up through the organization. Organizations that can afford to offer the best opportunities will have better employee retention, loyalty, and productivity than those that can not.

Instead what actually exists today is an HR-driven pigeon-holing process that prevents upward mobility. Looking at educational institutions to remedy that situation is like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The real problem are policies incapable of reflecting what a person has done, and can do, not the formal education.

Seems like if people had to pay some crazy amount of money to take a test, then it would bring up the importance of your education. Too many people believe that their degree means they have a better education than everyone.

Yawn. Kids these days. Yes, the technology has changed, but the practicalities and bureaucracies have not.

When I first got into ham radio, a half dozen guys who were interested would gather together in basements and garages to build ham radio satellites. One of those creations is still functioning today, decades after it was first launched (OSCAR 7). The technical challenge of building to a clean sheet of paper is interesting and instructive. However, it is trivial, especially when dealing with something that is basically a one-of creation. More to the point, they didn't have professors telling them how it should be built. They just did it using the technical papers published from the earliest spacecraft experience, their own educated guesses, and practical know-how.

I had many mentors in my ham radio experience. Most hams these days are happy just to know how to assemble a station. I went beyond that. I had experience working in a two-way radio repair shop. I had help designing microwave radios, spread spectrum systems (long before the IEEE 802.11 standards), packet radio, and so on. I did this in 1980 and 1981 as a junior and a senior in high school. I built a crystal phase-locked 10.250 GHz transceiver. I had an early packet radio system built around the W0RLI Terminal Node Controller. I studied electronic warfare systems in my summer internship at Naval Research Lab. I studied and constructed experiments in audio compandering, narrow band integration of slow CW signals, early micro-processor systems, and many other things. By the time I got to college, I'd already seen and done many times more than most people would ever get in their entire college experience.

Yes, some of the finer points of semiconductor physics were interesting. The Fluid dynamics class was interesting too. However, the math was mostly stuff I'd already seen in another form. The signals class would have been much more interesting if the instructor were worth anything. Thankfully I had a lot of practical intuition from my earlier experience to throw at that class that got me through it.

However, today, when designing half a dozen chemical feed systems for a large water treatment plant that must be reliable, economical, intrinsically safe, secure from cyber attack, coordinated with concurrent projects, integrated into existing control systems, and built on existing infrastructure --that's a completely different issue. In many ways it is far more difficult than putting a satellite in space.

By the way, that's a small project. Don't get me started on what larger ones are like. The technical part is often the easiest and simplest aspect to all this. It's the other stuff that tends to drive everyone nuts. THAT is why it takes so long to bring a graduate up to speed.

Those of you who think that Engineering is all technical are living in a dream world. If it were just technical schools might not be so far up the back side of the power curve. It's the social and decision making processes that are most daunting. I have yet to find a school that can teach those things.

People think water treatment engineers are no better than waste management engineers. People also think that small scale chemistry works exactly like scaled up chemistry, but they don't take into account all the different fluid properties. One of the most impressive things I've seen would be California's massive water treatment plant and Andritz' in Austria. If i remember right, they produce 50% of austria's power by just 1 hydroplant. I don't think satellites as he was saying is more impressive than this. http://www.andritz.com/hydro.htm

 

[TyPie]

I actually do know CPR, although I do not hold a certification in it.

But in medicine seconds count. I know of no situation where there was engineering to be done, and it had to happen before one could locate an actual engineer.

So you wouldn't trust yourself doing CPR, because you don't have a degree stating that you can do it? You don't think heat loss is important to watch out for if some one gets a big cut? You can probably come up with numerous ideas about how to help some one off basic physics...

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

I know of no situation where there was engineering to be done, and it had to happen before one could locate an actual engineer.

I wish I could say the same thing. Try working on a construction site where the existing infrastructure doesn't line up with what the plans depicted. Time is BIG money in those situations and it often leads to some really unfortunate decisions.

 

[StatGuy2000]

You have it backwards. Could one learn at least some of the technical aspects of Engineering in a school? I suppose it is possible even though the institution is stacked against it. My point is that I have found many opportunities outside that setting that worked better. One should not need to pay enormous sums of money to be institutionalized for the purpose of "learning" something. That is what infuriates me. I think a lot of what passes for a formal education is a damned bureaucrat driven Ponzi scheme. Some day I expect people will look at it and ask whether this is really working as effectively and economically as it should. I think we both know what the answer to that question would be.

When it comes to practical applications, it is most instructive to start from a bottoms-up approach. I've seen both top-down and bottoms-up in real life. I have seen a lot more success from evolutionary bottoms-up projects than revolutionary top-down projects. Unfortunately, schools teach the latter, while what is needed far more frequently is the former. The top-down approach works best when there is experience from what was done before and where things need to improve. In other words, top-down approaches work best later in a career, not straight out of college.

My other point was that we are teaching on the job anyway. We regularly train and update our skills. The organizations that don't keep pace are doomed to fail. The additional overhead of bringing a high school graduate into the fold to teach the more basic technical things is quite minimal. In fact, a refresher for regular staff might be a good thing. During that time, the student learns and applies those concepts right away to reinforce them. Those who are capable of making the most use of that education will find ways to move up through the organization. Organizations that can afford to offer the best opportunities will have better employee retention, loyalty, and productivity than those that can not.

Instead what actually exists today is an HR-driven pigeon-holing process that prevents upward mobility. Looking at educational institutions to remedy that situation is like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The real problem are policies incapable of reflecting what a person has done, and can do, not the formal education.

Jake, what you are talking about is ensuring how engineers who are just starting out can best be trained to become most effective in whatever organization they are working with, but that's not what clope23 and I are talking about. What you do not address is how to educate someone who wants to be an engineer to become an engineer to begin with.

At the risk of being simplistic, engineering is first and foremost the application of scientific knowledge to solve practical, real-world problems (as opposed to simply building things in your backyard like the ham radio). How can anyone in their right mind claim to be an engineer if they do not have some education in at least certain aspects of science, which is precisely what is taught in engineering curricula the world over?

You spend considerable breath bashing the engineering curriculum as being insufficient to train engineers (you routinely refer to engineering graduates as "fools" and "idiots"). Well then, in an ideal world, how would you train a high-school graduate to be come an engineer? By apprenticeship? Should they forget about learning math, physics or other aspects of "theory" that you so routinely scorn?

Furthermore, you routinely state that an engineering education does not prepare graduates for dealing with bureaucracies. Of course it doesn't! No educational program anywhere in the world prepares students for this. We live in the real world; that's not the purpose of school and it never will be.

It seems to me that you are advocating for engineering training that never existed and will likely never exist.

 

[tyjae]

This thread slowly dissolved into bashing newer engineers with degrees. If you love engineering why not major in it? . "Engineering" is not a one size fits all type of deal. There are so many nuances to a job and you're not even past a prerequisite phase.

 

[TyPie]

This thread slowly dissolved into bashing newer engineers with degrees. If you love engineering why not major in it? . "Engineering" is not a one size fits all type of deal. There are so many nuances to a job and you're not even past a prerequisite phase.

It was the other way around tbh. Started when some one said ham radios are basic, and school was easy back in those days.

 

[clope023]

It was the other way around tbh. Started when some one said ham radios are basic, and school was easy back in those days.

I said no such thing, this is an actual straw man.

 

[TyPie]

Jake, what you are talking about is ensuring how engineers who are just starting out can best be trained to become most effective in whatever organization they are working with, but that's not what clope23 and I are talking about. What you do not address is how to educate someone who wants to be an engineer to become an engineer to begin with.

At the risk of being simplistic, engineering is first and foremost the application of scientific knowledge to solve practical, real-world problems (as opposed to simply building things in your backyard like the ham radio). How can anyone in their right mind claim to be an engineer if they do not have some education in at least certain aspects of science, which is precisely what is taught in engineering curricula the world over?

You spend considerable breath bashing the engineering curriculum as being insufficient to train engineers (you routinely refer to engineering graduates as "fools" and "idiots"). Well then, in an ideal world, how would you train a high-school graduate to be come an engineer? By apprenticeship? Should they forget about learning math, physics or other aspects of "theory" that you so routinely scorn?

Furthermore, you routinely state that an engineering education does not prepare graduates for dealing with bureaucracies. Of course it doesn't! No educational program anywhere in the world prepares students for this. We live in the real world; that's not the purpose of school and it never will be.

It seems to me that you are advocating for engineering training that never existed and will likely never exist.

Idk, I've met some pretty weird doctors too. Just look up the trefoil knot bagel.

 

[TyPie]

I said no such thing, this is an actual straw man.

I'm a woman, and not caring to get into politics. No reason to discriminate though.

 

[clope023]

I'm a woman, and not caring to get into politics. No reason to discriminate though.

Straw man is the name of a fallacy whereby someone argues against a point that has not been made.

 

[psparky]

I was trying to make a comparison between the FE and a degree. I have taken the practice exam with the timer and breaks even. I just feel like they've made it too easy. The thing that bothers me is that more than 10% of the people fail the FE, but yet they have an engineering degree. Wouldn't some one who's passed the FE possibly be of greater value than the person who hasn't?

33% of people fail the FE. It is a hard test for sure. The FE to me, basically proves you actually learned something in school. So 66% of the people are passing the first time. The pass rate for 2nd timers or more drops to a 25%. Tough test.

You said you took the practice exam. The morning is typically somewhat difficult, and the afternoon is very difficult.

Are you saying you passed the practice exam in the big yellow book that most of us study from? That afternoon general section is a bear.
If you passed that...that's amazing with no degree.

I took the afternoon electrical option. That afternoon session was way tougher than the electrical PE test.

But like I say, you only need a 50% to pass the FE...the PE you need a 70%.
It was at least that way 3 years ago...the FE test has changed some of its subject matter...so can't be sure of the 50% now.

Also, there is no reason you can't get a job as an "electrical designer" at any engineering firm.
It's just that your pay may max out at 50K...whereas the PE's pay may max out at 100K for example.
You may be good enough to do the same exact work, but your paycheck will be half of the registered professional.

 

[elkement]

... and Andritz' in Austria. If i remember right, they produce 50% of austria's power by just 1 hydroplant. I don't think satellites as he was saying is more impressive than this. http://www.andritz.com/hydro.htm

Sorry for being off-topic and nitpicking but as an Austrian engineer I cannot resist: 60% of Austria's electrical power comes from hydro power plants. There are more than 4.000 plants, 150 of them so-called large plants delivering more than 10 MW rated power. Ten large plants at the Danube produce about 20% of total power, each of them at a power of 130MW to 350MW - but there is no particularly "giant" hydro power plant delivering all the power. Andritz is a manufacturer of turbines, not an operator of a plant.

More on topic: With hindsight I found labs and projects during my degree programs most useful career-wise, and the option to get my hands on rare and expensive equipment. I had the option to work with real-live "customers" such as the operator of a wind farm. When working towards my PhD in applied physics I was "forced" to do also project controlling, project management, negotiating with a bunch of diverse international project partners, including some from industry. All of which I hated back then but which was a useful and absolutely realistic exercise in politics and bureaucracy.

 

[TyPie]

Sorry for being off-topic and nitpicking but as an Austrian engineer I cannot resist: 60% of Austria's electrical power comes from hydro power plants. There are more than 4.000 plants, 150 of them so-called large plants delivering more than 10 MW rated power. Ten large plants at the Danube produce about 20% of total power, each of them at a power of 130MW to 350MW - but there is no particularly "giant" hydro power plant delivering all the power. Andritz is a manufacturer of turbines, not an operator of a plant.

More on topic: With hindsight I found labs and projects during my degree programs most useful career-wise, and the option to get my hands on rare and expensive equipment. I had the option to work with real-live "customers" such as the operator of a wind farm. When working towards my PhD in applied physics I was "forced" to do also project controlling, project management, negotiating with a bunch of diverse international project partners, including some from industry. All of which I hated back then but which was a useful and absolutely realistic exercise in politics and bureaucracy.

Thanks for clearing that up. My german is pretty bad. It's still impressive that 60% of the power comes from hydroplants. What's the price of gas there? In some parts of the US, gas is just $1.99.

 

[TyPie]

33% of people fail the FE. It is a hard test for sure. The FE to me, basically proves you actually learned something in school. So 66% of the people are passing the first time. The pass rate for 2nd timers or more drops to a 25%. Tough test.

You said you took the practice exam. The morning is typically somewhat difficult, and the afternoon is very difficult.

Are you saying you passed the practice exam in the big yellow book that most of us study from? That afternoon general section is a bear.
If you passed that...that's amazing with no degree.

I took the afternoon electrical option. That afternoon session was way tougher than the electrical PE test.

But like I say, you only need a 50% to pass the FE...the PE you need a 70%.
It was at least that way 3 years ago...the FE test has changed some of its subject matter...so can't be sure of the 50% now.

Also, there is no reason you can't get a job as an "electrical designer" at any engineering firm.
It's just that your pay may max out at 50K...whereas the PE's pay may max out at 100K for example.
You may be good enough to do the same exact work, but your paycheck will be half of the registered professional.

It was the big yellow one. I think I'm just going to take out a huge loan and try to start my own business tbh. I had a job in sales at one time. The manager was like, "I can do calculus, and that's why I'm the manager, I have a business degree." I told him nicely that I could do calculus too, so he Googled a problem with solution on some math help site. So I answered his question, and then I asked him a basic one with trig. He couldn't answer it, and goes back to his office to Google it. I saw it in his history, but soon after that day showing him that I could do Calc, I was demoted to being basically QC/janitor.

 

[TyPie]

Sorry for being off-topic and nitpicking but as an Austrian engineer I cannot resist: 60% of Austria's electrical power comes from hydro power plants. There are more than 4.000 plants, 150 of them so-called large plants delivering more than 10 MW rated power. Ten large plants at the Danube produce about 20% of total power, each of them at a power of 130MW to 350MW - but there is no particularly "giant" hydro power plant delivering all the power. Andritz is a manufacturer of turbines, not an operator of a plant.

More on topic: With hindsight I found labs and projects during my degree programs most useful career-wise, and the option to get my hands on rare and expensive equipment. I had the option to work with real-live "customers" such as the operator of a wind farm. When working towards my PhD in applied physics I was "forced" to do also project controlling, project management, negotiating with a bunch of diverse international project partners, including some from industry. All of which I hated back then but which was a useful and absolutely realistic exercise in politics and bureaucracy.

Thanks for clearing that up! What would you say are the best austrian engineering companies. The only big companies I know would be wienerbergen and andritz. I hope I spelled them right. Mein deutsch ist schlecht.

 

[psparky]

Here's one more thought. You would be amazed how many companies don't do background checks or actually call the school you went to to double check your degree.

In other words, try making your resume saying you have an engineering degree. Show your past work histories at a few different made up companies. Send the resume to several companies, you will get interviews. Wow them at the interview and land the job. It's all about your "swagger" in the interview. Might some companies catch you? Sure, but that's the chance you take. All they will do is ask you to leave. What about the company that doesn't know? Go with it. Once you start your first day no one cares about your degree. They just assume you have it.

Obviously, some of you will have morality issues with this, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Just a thought to bypass all the B.S. as you put it.

And the only reason I say this is because you pasted that afternoon session in that yellow book. I couldn't do that back then, and I coudn't do that now...and yes, I obviously have my P.E.

Do not make up a having a PE. You can check your credentials quite easily via the internet. They will bust you instantly on that.

All that being said, I still think going in as an "electrical desinger is your best bet.
Or mechanical designer, or civil designer, or structural designer...etc.

 

[TyPie]

Here's one more thought. You would be amazed how many companies don't do background checks or actually call the school you went to to double check your degree.

In other words, try making your resume saying you have an engineering degree. Show your past work histories at a few different made up companies. Send the resume to several companies, you will get interviews. Wow them at the interview and land the job. It's all about your "swagger" in the interview. Might some companies catch you? Sure, but that's the chance you take. All they will do is ask you to leave. What about the company that doesn't know? Go with it. Once you start your first day no one cares about your degree. They just assume you have it.

Obviously, some of you will have morality issues with this, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Just a thought to bypass all the B.S. as you put it.

And the only reason I say this is because you pasted that afternoon session in that yellow book. I couldn't do that back then, and I coudn't do that now.

Do not make up a having a PE. You can check your credentials quite easily via the internet. They will bust you instantly on that.

Doesn't this happen often? Like some one gets assigned a project and fails the project, but points fingers at everyone else, then gets a new project? Then they get into management after failing twice right and being the best finger pointers.

 

[clope023]

Here's one more thought. You would be amazed how many companies don't do background checks or actually call the school you went to to double check your degree.

In other words, try making your resume saying you have an engineering degree. Show your past work histories at a few different made up companies. Send the resume to several companies, you will get interviews. Wow them at the interview and land the job. It's all about your "swagger" in the interview. Might some companies catch you? Sure, but that's the chance you take. All they will do is ask you to leave. What about the company that doesn't know? Go with it. Once you start your first day no one cares about your degree. They just assume you have it.

Obviously, some of you will have morality issues with this, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Just a thought to bypass all the B.S. as you put it.

Do not make up a PE. You can check your credentials quite easily via the internet.

This is probably the one point where I'd be in agreement with JakeBrodskyPE and it's that just because you can take tests and do well on them doesn't mean that you can actually DO engineering, I think that's true even if we're talking about the PE. What you're suggesting sounds like a good recipe for stuff to blow up in TyPie's face. Might she have the ability to do well based on raw intelligence alone? Maybe. Might she have the equivalent knowledge about pen and paper engineering theory that someone with a degree has? Maybe. However, I don't see evidence that she's built stuff or done lots outside of the classroom projects like lots of engineering undergrads do now, which often times makes or breaks getting the job. Just having a degree doesn't do it anymore, it's become a necessary but not sufficient condition. My degrees got me in the door of HR, my experience doing projects got me my job, I was even asked to do a presentation about my undergrad projects and research during my interview. Swagger isn't going to fix that.