"acceptable work experience" question

Suppose a person has an engineering degree from an ABET-accredited program, passes the FE exam, and obtains 4 years of experience working under the supervision of an emeritus engineering professor who owns a private company -- however, that emeritus engineering professor is not a PE. (The company does government contracts, so the government PE signs off on everything; however, this PE is considered a client of the company rather than the supervisor of the engineer-in-training).

Would that person qualify to take the PE exam and become a PE upon passing? Or does the fact that the person works under the supervision of a non-PE disqualify the candidate, even if his supervisor is a retired full-tenured professor of engineering?

depends on the state and their requirements

snickerd3 said:

depends on the state and their requirements

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that^; and your dicipline will probably make a difference (i.e. in Ca your scenario would be cool if you are mechE, but not if you are civil).

edit... maybe I should have looked and noticed that your dicipline is clearly stated...

good luck.

In CO, the experience does NOT have to be under a PE, but it helps. You do have to show "progressive engineering experience" showing how your skills/responsibilities/etc have grown during that time.

theprocess said:

Suppose a person has an engineering degree from an ABET-accredited program, passes the FE exam, and obtains 4 years of experience working under the supervision of an emeritus engineering professor who owns a private company -- however, that emeritus engineering professor is not a PE. (The company does government contracts, so the government PE signs off on everything; however, this PE is considered a client of the company rather than the supervisor of the engineer-in-training).
Would that person qualify to take the PE exam and become a PE upon passing? Or does the fact that the person works under the supervision of a non-PE disqualify the candidate, even if his supervisor is a retired full-tenured professor of engineering?

Click to expand...

The final answer to this question depends on what state you are trying to get licensed in. The most important nuance to this case is how much interaction you had with the licensed PE. If he actively managed your work with regular review of your design, then the experience will probably count. If you and your boss contracted to provide an end product which the PE stamped without much review or feedback along the way, then it will probably not count. The only qualification your supervisor poseesses that the state licensing Board will care about is a PE license.

In the eyes of the law, PE > PhD.

It also depends on how you present your experience to your state board. If you demonstrated that you were "designing," "managing," "responsible," "progressively learning," etc, then you have a better chance on getting your work verified. However, if you presented it as "I was a CAD tech" and "not responsible", then they have no reason to even consider you.

The application is a much more thorough Resume in a way. You have to "sell" yourself as someone worthy of the priviledge of becoming a PE. By no means am I encouraging exaggeration or "white lies", but if you did the work you should present it so that it highlights the engineering side of the experience. I know alot of us started not really responsible for anything other than the mundane "busy work" (quantities, CAD drafting, printing, etc), but we all used that experience to get inside knowledge of what our engineering partners and supervisors do and to be able to start doing more of the "engineering" associated with your trade.

But as others have stated, you should research through your state board's website to gather as much info as to what qualifies your experience. If you can't find what you're looking for, by all means get in contact with someone there via either phone or email.