ASCE looks to get into the "experience verification" game

[redrum]

ASCE Will Consider How To Measure Engineers' Experience

1/15/2007

By ENR Staff

The American Society of Civil Engineers is taking a closer look at how work experience should factor into engineering license and practice requirements. The fledgling effort could add a new dimension to the already controversial licensing debate, but participants say any new guidelines will take years to implement.

ASCE has formed a newly “experience committee” as it moves into a new phase of efforts to implement a new required “body of knowledge” (BOK) for the profession, says Jeffrey S. Russell, chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s civil engineering department and head of ASCE’s effort to revamp academic prerequisites. “What’s the role of experience in engineering and who will validate it, and how do you equate experience to educational credit?”

"Evaluating experience may be complex, but it's not wrong to carefully look at it."

— — Jeffrey S. Russell, Educator and ASCE

The new committee, which now includes two educators and two practitioners, will likely expand. Its first conference call is set for mid-February, with a meeting planned for April, says Russell. “We need to enhance the requirements to practice,” says committee Chairman Monte Phillips, a retired University of North Dakota-Grand Forks civil engineering professor and former president of the National Society of Professional Engineers. He says the group may seek to standardize the definition of experience to ease already varied state license rules.

Practitioner member Craig Musselman, president of CMA Engineers Inc., Portsmouth, N.H., says the effort will look at experience in such areas as data analysis, project management, ethics and construction administration. “We know engineering is broader, with more technology and management. Should experience be included in licensure or another area?”

Russell says ASCE will consider experience mandates in fields such as medicine and law and is not looking to propose “sweeping” changes. “Evaluating experience may be complex, but it’s not wrong to carefully look at it,” he says.

 

[McEngr]

You carefully assess experience by testing on it. How else can you evaluate some guys 20 years with some engineering firm without testing him on what is understood nationally? Easy - you have a national exam for multiple levels like the structural exam. But hey... who asked me. I'm just some anonymous guy on a message board. ;-)

 

[Dleg]

I hope they choose to evaluate a broader range of "experience" than my state board does now. I've been out of college for 16 years now, yet in the eyes of my state board (the regulations, anyway) only 3 of those years count, since those were the only years I worked under the direct supervision of a licensed engineer. My work in the "exempted" oil field gets thrown out, essentially, even though it was probably the most carefully supervised and technologically advanced work in my career. And, I have to fight to have them consider my 8+ years of work in the government because my supervisors (state agency directors) were not engineers at all (nevermind all the PEs I have worked with, and PEs I have to regulate).

So I'm glad they're "looking" at it. I just hope they use common sense and don't turn this into another way to restrict the number of PE licenses that are granted.

 

[bohnsai78]

I had Prof. Russell for a couple courses in college. I had no idea he was heading up the Civil Engineering Dept. now, doesn't surprise me though, that guy knows his stuff and is about as level headed as they come. He had more stuff on his plate and was literally the busiest man I ever met, yet he always had time for the students AND the student organizations. Students were lining up outside his door for recommendations when it came time to interview for jobs.

Anyway, they way that little blurb is written makes it sound like this could be a real pain in the butt; however, I'm pretty confident that if Russell is on the committee then he will make this a good thing for the engineering industry.

 

[Road Guy]

your right there isnt a lot of information given, but I guess they are assuming that the boards dont really know what to evaluate in terms of experience?

I know in GA they look very close, they even hosed me out of almost a year I spent on active duty. Of course I wished they hadnt have caught it, but I wasnt going to lie to them.

I have never really heard of anyone's application being flat out denied, but I know of a lot (like me) that ended up getting much more experience than what was supposedly required, probably a lot of it due to just a poorly written description of experience.

 

[JohnNevets]

I actually had to have a hearing at one of the board meetings to justify my experience. It came down to my company didn't title me as an engineer for the first 3 years I was there, for the first year I was a "Draftsman" (not really) the next two I was a "Designer", and so I only had about 18 months on my form as a structural engineer. After the hearing they allowed me to sit for the next test, but wanted at least 6 months more experience (something I achieved about a month before the test).

The thing was, before it happened I didn't even consider that they might reject my experience, so it was bit of a shock after studying for a month and a half last year for the April test to find out that I was rejected. The next board meeting was a week before the test, so I knew I'd be missing it. In hind sight it allowed me to set up a better study schedule for October, and I think helped me pass the test the first time this October.

As much of a pain in the butt this experience was, I would prefer an interview process to a lot of what the NCESS and ASCE are suggesting.

Now I wonder if ASCE is going force this on all us non-ce's as well.

Have fun all,

John

Bohnsai78 your initials don't happen to be LG do they?

 

[Dleg]

The whole problem with the way the boards regulate "experience" is that they are using a regulatory/engineering approach, and that hardly ever works with people's real ives. When you get right down to it, unless your career just happens to fit the narrow mold of A&E experience they have set as the gold standard, it really does require that the actual "human beings" of the board look at the actual human being that is applying, and use their personal (not engineering) judgement.

I would not be surprised if, eventually, the boards go completely away from the regulatory "xx years" approach and hand-picked personal references (like you're going to give them the name of someone who won't give you an glowing endorsement) and start doing what the law enforcement community or State Department does - hire a private detective or off-duty cop to perform a "background check" and interview people who know you, to get an objective view of who you really are and what your experience is. That would be pretty uncomfortable (and I would be against it, BTW), but I wouldn't be surprised...

 

[bohnsai78]

...Bohnsai78 your initials don't happen to be LG do they?

Nope.......KB