P.E. -- Past, Present, & Future?

P.E. Past, Present, & Future?

It was not long ago when anyone with a non-engineering degree could obtain a P.E. that was based on subjective pass-fail criteria and, as a result, the profession today has an inappropriate amount of P.Es with unqualified credentials.

Now, we have improved licensing requirements, but we have peripheral P.E. designations such as Environmental, Metallurgical, Mining & Mineral, Naval Architecture & Marine, Nuclear, & Petroleum P.E. designation. All of these were, not long ago, under the Mechanical Engineering umbrella.

And, omg, we now have an Industrial Engineering (Professors & Students referred that discipline as Imaginary Engineering) P.E. And another omg, Agricultural P.E.

Where are we going???

I remember Industrial Engineering students struggling with Thermodynamics; moreover, Civil Engineers took courses such as Mechanics of Materials and Mechanical Behavior of Materials as seniors, but in ME, we took those courses in our freshman & sophomore years.

In some ways the P.E designation has improved, but in others, I believe it is increasingly becoming a “so-what” designation.

Arguments please.

I don't get your point. What arguments are you looking for. Obviously, most everyone here thinks the designation is of value or we wouldn't have gone through the process, and likely wouldn't be reading this website. I assume you have sufficient experience to evaulate the value of a PE designation in your career. If you think it is a "so-what" designation, don't bother with the test and do something else that day. I doubt that you are going to read anything here that changes any of your present conceptions. But, maybe I'm wrong.

My point is that, unlike the past, there is a lot of peripheral P.E. designations today. And quite frankly, some of these designations aren't engineering at all.

The P.E. benefits me because I own a multi-million dollar business in the HVACR industry. In addition, I graduated with Highest Honors from a top 3 engineering school; moreover, I obtained National Honors & National Dean's List.

What are your credentials benbo?

benbo said:

I don't get your point. What arguments are you looking for. Obviously, most everyone here thinks the designation is of value or we wouldn't have gone through the process, and likely wouldn't be reading this website. I assume you have sufficient experience to evaulate the value of a PE designation in your career. If you think it is a "so-what" designation, don't bother with the test and do something else that day. I doubt that you are going to read anything here that changes any of your present conceptions. But, maybe I'm wrong.

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GT ME said:

My point is that, unlike the past, there is a lot of peripheral P.E. designations today. And quite frankly, some of these designations aren't engineering at all.
The P.E. benefits me because I own a multi-million dollar business in the HVACR industry. In addition, I graduated with Highest Honors from a top 3 engineering school; moreover, I obtained National Honors & National Dean's List.

What are your credentials benbo?

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My specific credentials wouldn't interest you. It appears that the only thing that interests you are your own credentials. I have some humility, which obviously you lack. Since you are so anxious to share information, what is your name and the name of your business? Or is that you Tom McKeon?

GT ME,

I understand your point... for those (most, right?) States that designate all P.E.s as just "Registered Professional Engineer", there is no way of showing the difference between disciplines. And I'm sure everyone will agree there are some harder disciplines than others. I'd put Civil certainly in the middle 80%, but Structural and Agriculture are probably on opposite ends.

GT, Welcome aboard.

Your topic is a valid one and should definitely be discussed, but Shoot the Breeze is generally a place for non-PE/technical/work topics to blow off some steam.

Beaming to General Engineering...

I'm an Electrical Engineer, so my discipline didn't get insulted outright. Maybe he just forgot. But I would hope that somebody else with a PE in Environmental, Nuclear, Industrial , Biological or (omg) Agricultural engineering would respond to this guy. Heck, he basically implies that Freshman MEs know about as much as graduating civil engineers. Sheesh. I wouldn't think that was a good way to build popularity around here.

GT ME said:

Arguments please.

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Your premise, at face value is argumentative at best. How do you judge someone's 'qualfication' by the discipline of thier profession without looking at the underlying coursework or experience? You are making sweeping generalizations without any support other than the hubris that MEs are superior to other engineering disciplines. Your only vague support is ... the way things used to be ?

The only thing that I can see in your presentation is the beginning of a beat-off blister - it looks like you are well on your way to achieving that goal. :jerkit: :leghump:

If you want to engage in a serious discussion of the progression of our profession, I would recommend providing FACTUAL STATEMENTS rather than conjecture and perhaps try to apply a modicum of humility. Not all of us fit the :burgerking: role as well as you do.

:2cents:

JR

IMHO P.E. peripheral designations exist due to ever developing technology and the increasingly stringent guidlines set forth by various agencies. It only makes sense that people specialize in certain areas, this allows for these people to concentrate on the most efficient means of design with the current technology that meets the required standards. Would you go to a M.E. that primarily deals with HVAC to design a ship for you because it falls under his umbrella? I wouldn't even he did graduate from a top 3 engineering school. What is the sense of being a jack of all trades and master of none?

Geeez! I haven't been around an engineer with that much ego in a long time. It's just so unnecessary. Engineering credentials do not make the person.

A mentor of mine once said to me "You can be a PE and still be a dumbass"

^^ So true. The stupidest engineer I've ever known is a PE. When I found out, I didn't believe it, so I went to the state website and saw his name. Just goes to prove that credentials are not the best indication of talent.

GT ME said:

I remember Industrial Engineering students struggling with Thermodynamics; moreover, Civil Engineers took courses such as Mechanics of Materials and Mechanical Behavior of Materials as seniors, but in ME, we took those courses in our freshman & sophomore years.
Arguments please.

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They must have had to condense the schedule to concentrate on Arrogance in Jr & Sr years

I took Mechanics of Materials in my freshman / sophmore years. for the most part that course is required prior to taking Structural Analysis, Steel Design, & Reinforced Concrete Design. It would be almost impossible to wait until your senior year to take all of that.

GT

I saw your post Friday night and I thought you were just bragging about MEs being better than Civils or everybody else. That was the direction of your post. I felt the need to reply and ask exactly what Benbo did but decided not to do it since I was concerned about missunderstanding your post. Now I feel better because I know I did not.

As an EE I did not have to take Mech of Materials since my department decided that the class was irrelevant for us. Before you start to question my college accreditations let me tell you that is an ABET college so I do not have to explain more. Maybe is not like your top 3 but is as good as any other engineering college. Your argument is at least vague and confrontational and that is why you had all this reactions.

We are not used here to somebody coming and bragging about his credentials or his multi-million dollar company. We are normal mortals. When you asked Benbo about his credentials you crossed the line. You know it and did it on purpose. Being a graduated from a top 3 engineering college you are smart and knew exactly what you did. That is not the spririt of this Board. We are here to help others to pass the test and after that have some technical discussions, good time, share opinions and other advices.

If you can leave your higher place and come here in that spirit, willing to share opinions with respect to others, you are more than welcome. If not I think you might be better somewhere else. Your superior attitude would not be a good fit here.

Thanks Luis. My first inclination was that this fellow (or gal) was actually some high schooler trolling the board. It was hard to believe a professional could be so boorish and obnoxious. Now my inclination is to believe that he may be well qualified but actually worried about passing the test. His first question didn't seem to be the sort of thing some engineering genius would have trouble with. But, that's besides the point. My educational and professional credentials would stack up fine next to his, but what's the point? This is the internet. I could make up anythig I wanted to, so why get hooked into dropping my pants for a measuring conmtest with a clod.

slates said:

IMHO P.E. peripheral designations exist due to ever developing technology and the increasingly stringent guidlines set forth by various agencies.

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I completely agree. And to go further, this is also what's happening in education. A couple years before I started my BSEE (in '96), the EE students had to take mechanics of materials, but by the time I got there we didn't. We did have to take statics, dynamics and "baby thermo". But four years later, the dynamics and thermo requirements were also dropped for EE's.

Does this mean the EE grads are worse engineers? Well, it certainly means we're worse mechanical engineers, but that's not what we were shooting for anyway. But the time that used to be spent on engineering mechanics is now spent on more EE studying, which in theory leads to better electrical engineers. And I've never needed to know statics, dynamics or thermo to perform my electrical engineering job--some of the stuff is handy to know in understanding how electrical-related things like power plants or motors work, but the relevant basics can be learned OJT.

Back to GT's topic; I too graduated Summa Cum Laude, plus I was a National Merit Scholar and I have an MS degree and all that crap. I'm not trying to stroke my ego here; my point is that even with those credentials, I'm not qualified as a Fire Protection engineer or to design a bridge or an HVAC system or an industrial process. And like Sapper says, I have no desire to do any of those things, and further, I'd rather not have those responsibilites weighing down my license (assuming the MI board approves my license application--6 weeks and counting since I got my PE exam passing results).

Ok, so maybe I'm being too extreme here; obviously an electrical engineer shouldn't be designing bridges. Perhaps this is more relevant: I've seen there is a Control Systems PE now, and controls has (at least partially) traditonally been under the EE umbrella. Does it bother me that ME's or IE's might be sniping controls from us EE's? No, not really. I might be qualified to do controls engineering, but I don't. And further, I'm not qualified to design computers, even though computer engineering falls under EE as well--though there is no specific Computer PE (yet). I also don't care if the person who designed my computer was qualified to design an electric utility system. So if someone wants to specialize in one of these areas, more power to them, I say. We hear about a shortage of engineers in this country and all about H1B visas; if we require every PE to know everything about every discipline or even every specialization within their own discipline, we're just erecting false barriers that are going to come back to bite us.

SapperPE said:

the bottom line is not whether or not you have another credential, the bottom line is, can you competently practice engineering in the field that you have chosen as your profession?

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Good point, Sapper. I meant to make this point in my post, but it got so long I forgot! Credentials may help get you in the door on a job, but it's your perfomance that counts--and there are plenty of sloppy or lazy, well-credentialed people, and plenty of hard working, good-performing people without all the credentials. This is what bothers me about seniority-based pay scales, but that's a topic of different rant.

The original post said "In some ways the P.E designation has improved, but in others, I believe it is increasingly becoming a “so-what” designation."

Getting past personalities and (perhaps) egos, I think this is a statement that can be intelligently argued. It isn't an insult to all Agricultural Engineers and it isn't a compliment to all Structural Engineers.

GT ME said:

My point is that, unlike the past, there is a lot of peripheral P.E. designations today. And quite frankly, some of these designations aren't engineering at all.
The P.E. benefits me because I own a multi-million dollar business in the HVACR industry. In addition, I graduated with Highest Honors from a top 3 engineering school; moreover, I obtained National Honors & National Dean's List.

What are your credentials benbo?

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Wao.I have so much to learn.Didn't expext to read this kind of posts here but that shows the great variety of engineers in this place. I mean there are engineers and there are ENGINEERS. The guy has a point in some way but his arrogance just eclipsed the idea of the post. What a shame. It would be a hell of a topic under other cirmustances.To make my contribution to the discussion I don't really think your credetials are a help in the real world.Other than the fact that it can open doors when you are fresh out of college credentials do a ****. 20 years from now tell me who will care if you were Magna Cum Laude, National Super Star or the Engineer of the Year. What will tell about you is the quality of your work and your clients and trust me, clients give a **** about your college credentials. Just my opinion or :2cents: (like to use that emoticon). Ease a little bit GT ME. It is always good to know someone who owns millions but remember that here you are a minority or as a matter of fact the only million dollar man.