Master's Degree Credit

[Ramnares P.E.]

So Louisiana will grant a PE license based purely on work experience and no need to take the PE exam but they're giving folks a hard time about credits for an MS degree done while working? WTF is that all about?

 

[NOLaEng2015]

Louisiana does not accept double dipping of a masters gained while working full-time and Florida has recently changed their rules to do the same thing.

Can someone explain to me why you would not want to allow double dipping? It seems to me that by allowing 1-year credit for a masters in the first place you are proving the masters has a year worth of value to an engineer. Why does it matter if you were working at the same time?

I appreciate any opinions as I am just curious and always seem to get the same response from Professional Engineering Boards of "you just can't double dip" without any explanation or their thought process.

I think the reasoning is if you claim a "year" for two different things, then you probably were "half-time" for each. Perhaps if someone could show that they were working full-time for a year (2080 hours) and also earning a masters at night, Louisiana might be willing to allow it.

That's what is going on in LA and FL now, if someone works full-time (2080 hrs) and gets a masters at the same time, they can only count one year, for either work or masters.

If you only get a masters in during a year, you are allowed to count that as a year of experience.

If you were working 20 hours a week and working on a masters I'd understand it but the fact they are willing to accept EITHER full-time as a year or masters as a year, it seems to me they are accepting the value of a masters degree, no matter if you work on it at night over 10 years or 1 year.

I really want someone to chime in that accepts the value of a masters degree as a year, but don't think you should be able to double dip as that's what the states opinion is.