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It’s my opinion that it’s taking longer and longer for firms to train recent graduates, because in general engineering professors don’t have the ability to or are too arrogant/lazy to teach well-prepped courses. In turn, students are not learning how to think on their own. I’ll just use structural analysis as an example. Traditionally, most professors will follow the chapters outlined in the Hibbler book, and all homework and exam questions will come from that book. The students will most likely torrent the solution manual for the book, and the only thing that’s been learned is how to copy. What the professors should be doing is calling up a structural firm, asking for a set of basic plans, and telling students to draw the shear and moment diagram for the beam at grid line A between 1-3 accounting for material weights and live load. This requires the student to actually think about how to calculate loads, and shows them that a beam is not a rectangular block that sits on top of a triangle and a circle. Professors don’t do this because it would actually require them to solve the problems themselves, plus they might get a question that actually requires them to look at something other than a textbook to answer it. I know this is true, because during the very first class of my structural capstone class, I give the students a set of structural plans and tell them to calculate the unfactored loads that would be transferred to a footing. I get looks like I’m speaking in a foreign language and they need the Rosetta Stone to do the calculations. This is just one example of how professors lack in basic teaching skills. The other common issue in engineering is professors cram a ridiculous amount of material into a single course. I wish professors would realize that fullly understanding a little is better than not knowing much about a lot. My favorite example of this is the steel professor at my college. For his class he covers tension, bending, shear, compression, torsion, bearing and slip critical connections including eccentricity, welds, 1st and 2nd order frame stability analysis, and base plate design. That sounds great until the students get to my advanced design class and can’t tell me whether a bolt is in shear or tension, or how forces are transferred in a bearing connection.

In addition to this, professors don’t ask students to draft anymore which is beyond ridiculous, so again students get no exposure to how an actual building fits together. Almost everyone of my homeworks requires students to draft a beam or connection they’ve designed from a set of plans, and it pisses me off that my other colleagues won’t do the same. Another underlying issue that I don’t think industry is as aware of are the use of adjuncts to teach fundamental classes. With academia trying to be as cheap as humanly possible, more and more temporary teaching positions are used to cover classes like statics, strength of materials, etc. The interview process for some of these positions goes like this, “Oh, you have a PhD and took statics and are willing to work for wages you couldn’t live on, congratulations, you’re hired”. Then what happens is you get someone that either a) hasn’t actually used statics in the 21st century, b) is some cryptic old person with one foot in the grave that is senile, or c) is a international professor that follows a textbook like cooking instructions from a recipe book with no variation, and doesn’t actually understand statics beyond the class problems. When this happens students come out of the course more confused than when they went in, and the effects carry over from course to course until graduation. I actually saw one college have an environmental engineering professor teach statics, and another college had a construction management professor teach strength of materials. Finally, one of the most critical problems is  professors aren’t willing to raise the standard that students should meet. To elaborate, professors don’t fail as many students as they should, and they’re not making students responsible for basic skills such as penmanship and drafting. A lot of this also has to do with the tenure process, where, if you bring in a million dollar grant you could essentially take a dump in the middle of your classroom and still get tenure.

What I’m getting at is it shouldn’t be difficult or time-consuming to teach a recent graduate masonry design, if the graduates actually knew how to critically think.
You have some excellent points and I certainly appreciate the input from an academic perspective. I do have a few items I would like to add though.

1) I didn't necessarily mean an MS is needed to take the PE. I meant a young structural engineer is not adequately trained and cannot demonstrate a minimal competency for an engineering license without the addition of more classes than are currently taught at a BS level  (semantics, I know). This may not be the case with all disciplines but from my perspective, the Civil Structural exam personifies many of the topics you've discussed. First and foremost, the exam has nothing to do with putting a building together, but more about solving simple statics, indeterminate, materials, and design problems. It brings to mind exactly what you described as "students not knowing a beam is something more than a line on a circle and a triangle." I don't recall seeing any questions concerning complex system design on this exam.

2) I think an accelerated 5 year MS would be an excellent compromise. I don't think students should have to toil away forever to pursue their career but I do expect ALL of our hires to have some understanding of the 4 main construction materials (wood, steel, concrete, and masonry). Though it could be argued that masonry is similar to concrete on the LRFD design side, new employees are going to struggle and frustrate me without an in depth understanding of at least concrete. More often than not, BS grads barely understand how to design concrete columns due to the interaction of axial and bending loads.

3) I would argue that finite element analysis understanding is imperative for 2 reasons. First, I do not want to be teaching new hires finite element methods. Second, I don't want my engineers using finite element programs without understanding how they work.

4) The steel professor probably needs to split his material across 2 classes. Not only could he cover the valuable material you described, but he could add even more like gusset connections and special seismic detailing. This would be perfect for the 5 year MS program. It would also prepare grads for the SE exam. I was poorly prepared for special seismic detailing due to performing all of my engineering on the east coast out of high seismic areas.

5) Wood design is the most different from the other materials due to its anisotropic properties. This is not something I want to spend my time teaching new hires either. I already have my hands full with metal studs, aluminum, and more in depth design with the common materials.

6) I agree that students are sorely lacking in critical thinking skills. I would disagree this is solely academia's fault. To some extent it may be due to the fact that academia does not cull enough students, but my take on this is generational. I believe the lack of critical thinking skills is largely due to a fear of failure. Young college grads are afraid to try anything they don't fully understand due to their sheltered upbringing and parents not instilling basic societal knowledge into their children. In other words, "It's OK to fail as long as you learn from it and not everyone gets a trophy."

Again, I appreciate the feedback and rather than continue to post my gripes I am going to list off what I believe to be the most important classes to young structural grads (obviously beyond the math courses required to understand these concepts).

1)Statics

2)Mechanics of materials - basic indeterminate structures

3)Structural Analysis - indeterminate structural analysis methods such as moment distribution, integration method, Bernoulli and Timoshenko beam theory, etc...

3)Wood/timber design - incorporating shear walls, connections, lateral torsional buckling, and basic column design

4)Steel design - incorporating all of the items mentioned in your post and adding special seismic detailing at a minimum

5)Concrete design - incorporating shear walls, beams, T-beams, torsion, shear, punching shear, slabs, interactions at column/beam joints, and special seismic detailing.

6)Masonry design - basic column, pilaster, beam, and shear design while incorporating special seismic detailing.

7)Finite element methods - at least a basic understanding of how stiffness matrices are constructed and solved given the different end restraints.

These items would produce a perfect hire for me right out of college but sadly much less than half of this knowledge is present in graduates with a BS degree and many with an MS lack a significant portion of these qualities. Given the current restrictions upon academia, I don't see how the above items could be covered in a satisfactory manner without the addition of at least a 5 year accelerated MS program.

 
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I'm not so sure it's stupid. It would raise our billing rates which have historically been pitifully low compared to other professional services. I'm kind of sold on it since I would bet that an undergrad in engineering is MUCH different now than it was when I graduated in 2006. I'm sure you've probably been out even longer. Are you aware that abet accreditation essentially requires you to take such a breadth of classes that there is essentially no specialization with a bachelor's degree? I know in my firm, there is absolutely no way that I would hire someone with less education than a MS. A student simply cannot cover all of the construction materials before they graduate with a bachelors and it is a waste of money for businesses to educate them. Most schools we hire from now are actually eliminating masonry design (which is ABSOLUTELY BONKERS). In all seriousness, I would like to hear your take on why it is stupid as I've seen quite a bit of your material on eng-tips and respect your opinion.
I've talked about this before on eng-tips and you and Mama Said brought up great points that I mostly agree with. So, I'll briefly give you my thoughts without writing an entire novel (so please understand there's more to my opinion).

Raising billing rates by protectionism is foolish and self-defeating. Simply making it harder to become a PE will mean that a PE is even more just "passing a test" and less about the profession (literally, the ability to profess ones skills). We should make the profession more valuable. If you go to a painter and he/she says "I charge $20 / hr more than that guy but paint twice as fast" you can judge whether it's worth it. If you go to an engineer with a MS or a PhD and he/she charges $20 more than a BS engineer, how do you know if that MS or PhD actually adds value for your job? We need to fix the underlying reason why engineers are engaged in a "race to the bottom".

Education is about preparing mental tools for practical use. I agree completely that current education in engineering is too broad. I have a BA and I "specialized" in structural engineering by taking any class related to structures I could as an elective. With that I still missed out on masonry, bridges, plates and shells, and so on. Many classes in university were useless to me and I knew they were at the time. Some effort was put in to make things "practical", and my professors were mostly practicing engineers who passed on many good lessons, but it's definitely lacking.

The three biggest things that helped me become a confident engineer are my education (high school, university, etc.), working for 8 years at a small consulting firm dabbling in many different projects under a number of mentoring engineers, and passing the SE exam. None of those can replace the other in my mind; I needed all three to feel well-rounded enough to "profess" my engineering skills. I feel I honestly optimized my education and training so that I'm tackling my professional goals typically earlier than other engineers my age.

I'm sure you've probably been out even longer.
Would it surprise you to know that I graduated 2 years after you and only got licensed as a PE in 2014 (stubbornly took the SE in lieu of the PE)? That said; I've been solo for 4 years now and am on track to possibly open up my own engineering firm soon. I strongly feel that if I took another 4 years at school I'd be about 2-3 years behind where I am right now.

If it was up to me, the undergraduate degree would be 5 years with the last year covering topics like wood and masonry design
This. If it were up to me; structural engineer and SE would be a title designation distinct from the PE. You wouldn't be allowed to graduate with a civil engineering degree in college and be a SE; you would need an "structural engineering" BS (see IL state requirements for the courses needed to be an SE in that state, I actually had to qualify under the 8 years of experience rule as my BS wasn't enough). This could require 4 hard years in college or, as Mama Said suggested; most likely 5 years. Then, engineers who want to be a PE and an SE need to pass both the PE and SE exams. If you want to be a PE and work on structures then you need only pass the PE and there is no restriction if you're qualified by experience; but you can't call yourself an SE. This means that an SE needs to have the education background, have passed the 16-hour SE exam, and is focused on structural engineering. Everyone wins and, most importantly, it distinguishes the profession allowing for justification for increased fees that is measurable by laymen.

In short, I felt that ASCE's initiative was self-serving and wouldn't ultimately help the profession. What is needed is a change that impacts the root cause for our professions woes. I'm not really disagreeing with you; just disagreeing with ASCE.

These items would produce a perfect hire for me right out of college but sadly much less than half of this knowledge is present in graduates with a BS degree and many with an MS lack a significant portion of these qualities.
Agreed. I think we both agree that getting someone to graduate college and go right into engineering without the usual year or so of hand-holding by a senior engineer is what we should strive for. If I had to guess, I suspect you and I are mostly in agreement with a lot about this topic.

 
(see IL state requirements for the courses needed to be an SE in that state, I actually had to qualify under the 8 years of experience rule as my BS wasn't enough).
i qualified for the SE in IL before I moved to WA. then I had to take the stupid PE. Now I'm applying again to take the SE. rude.

 
i qualified for the SE in IL before I moved to WA. then I had to take the stupid PE. Now I'm applying again to take the SE. rude.
Well, the downside is my state didn't print my name in the newsletter because I took the 16-hour SE in lieu of the PE and since I took it in multiple parts they didn't see that I "passed the exam". Rude.

This also means I cannot be licensed in CA, WA, NJ, and possible one or two others as I never passed the PE exam. Rude!

 
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Well, the downside is my state didn't print my name in the newsletter because I took the 16-hour SE in lieu of the PE and since I took it in multiple parts they didn't see that I "passed the exam". Rude.

This also means I cannot be licensed in CA, WA, NJ, and possible one or two others as I never passed the PE exam. Rude!
well, you COULD. But you'd have to take the PE :p  

 
Well, the downside is my state didn't print my name in the newsletter because I took the 16-hour SE in lieu of the PE and since I took it in multiple parts they didn't see that I "passed the exam". Rude.

This also means I cannot be licensed in CA, WA, NJ, and possible one or two others as I never passed the PE exam. Rude!
but yes, RUDE!

 
Does any one know with the switch to CBT in 2024, will the SE exam become all multiple choices?

 
I don't think that anything like that has been announced yet...
Leggo when r u taking the SE exam?

If things go right I'm looking at Vertical for April 2020 :)

 
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I suggest they make the SE exam a condition for passing an ME or MS in civil engineering.  Otherwise, it's meaningless.  A masters+SE at final capstone course+2 additional years under a PE-structural or SE and then apply for the exam.

NCEES and ABET need to make the scope of the license more clearly delineated with complexity and standard of education.  For example:  most civil engineers doing repetitive roadway design, for example, aren't nearly as skilled as high-rise structural engineers in a high-seismic region like San Fransisco Bay.

I know some won't agree with me, but I think the MS or ME is in the future regardless of what we think.

 
Performance-based design will be the only option for structural engineers 100 years from now.  Half of what we do will be done with AI.

 
I had to reschedule / cancel the April exam due to a family emergency. It looks like I'll be doing the hybrid deal - paper & pencil in October and then the computer one in April next year. Does anyone have information on how that would work?
 
I had to reschedule / cancel the April exam due to a family emergency. It looks like I'll be doing the hybrid deal - paper & pencil in October and then the computer one in April next year. Does anyone have information on how that would work?
I had the same question and was directed to someone on NCEES' SE committee.

I'm assuming you're going to be/planning to take either the vertical or lateral part in October, and then the other in 2024 when the exam transitions to CBT. I may be in the same boat as you. Assuming (and hoping) you pass one part of the test in October, you will be required only to take and pass the other part once the exam transitions to CBT. The 5 year rule however still applies. That's the gist of the rep's response I was chatting with. Hope this helps.
 
I had the same question and was directed to someone on NCEES' SE committee.

I'm assuming you're going to be/planning to take either the vertical or lateral part in October, and then the other in 2024 when the exam transitions to CBT. I may be in the same boat as you. Assuming (and hoping) you pass one part of the test in October, you will be required only to take and pass the other part once the exam transitions to CBT. The 5 year rule however still applies. That's the gist of the rep's response I was chatting with. Hope this helps.
Thanks, that would make sense.
 
I had to reschedule / cancel the April exam due to a family emergency. It looks like I'll be doing the hybrid deal - paper & pencil in October and then the computer one in April next year. Does anyone have information on how that would work?
Good luck with both exams. Just a heads up that they will more likely change the reference codes for the CBT exams next year. I'm planning on taking mine when CBT starts so I can just focus on the same code cycle.
 

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