I think in the case Una posted it was pretty damn obvious that the radio station meant that as a joke. The humor came from the absurdity of someone being stupid enough to think that an audio engineer and a civil engineer are the same thing. I told that story to a couple of the engineers at work and they thought it was funny. I told them about the debate on the board here, and they thought it was pathetic people were so anal about this. They said the same thing I did, no one in real life is gonna confuse an audio engineer with a P.E.
I think a lot of the problem could come from the fact that the average person might not know too much about engineering and what it is to be an engineer.
A couple years ago I had no clue what an engineer actually did. Also, it wasn’t even until this year when I entered my first year of university to get a degree in engineering that I was fully aware of the entire professional aspect. Of course, I had learned about it before I chose the program but really that was only becuase my brother is also in university for engineering.
So think of some random person who really isn’t quite sure what being an engineer really is. They use the term broadly and consequently it’s accepted more broadly.
I think that engineering doesn’t have as much direct public contact as other professions like doctors or lawyers. When you’re sick you go to a doctor. When you’re in trouble with the law (or feeling generally litigious) you go to a lawyer. Generally you tend to deal with them directly. But if you want to purchase a product in day-to-day life you usually don’t deal directly with an engineer. So in that way, engineering is more “behind the curtain.”
So it’s pretty understandable why the term Engineer is used improperly. And realistically the term has seemed to evolve a double meaning.
Really, what are you going to do? The PEO can continue to stop people from using it improperly but other than that the options are limited.
No, actually, unless you were listening to what I was at the time, don’t presume to guess how it was presented. In fact, it was presented as if they were consulting an expert. What grabbed my attention as I was driving was them saying “Hey, let’s ask —, they’re an engineer!” There was no humor involved in it, and they were asking him questions like “So, can they legally build on this stuff?” and “How can people at home tell if their house is unsafe too? What should they do?”.
Now, the next argument will be that this is all “common sense” stuff, and therefore it was OK for him to be presented as an Engineer and to present his opinions on this, and this didn’t drag the profession through the mud at all, so why are all you uppity PE’s whining, blah, blah, blah. :rolleyes:
Although there have been many “protestations to the contrary”, I think it’s clear what is going on here. There is simply no excuse for not having total, unqualified, and complete condemnation of the “sanitation engineers” and “daycare services engineers” and their use of the word unless you simply don’t give a shit about the profession and practice, except for a way to pad a resume or look neat on a business card. But since I seem to be in the distinct minority, it doesn’t matter here on the SDMB. There has been no “proof” presented on either side of the debate to convince anyone on either side, so it’s really all going to come down to personal opinion in the end.
I can ask lots of anonymous people off-board too and report what they said as well. And given that my workplace consists of about 90% PE’s, you can guess what their reaction was. They thought people who wanted the use of the term Engineer in their job title should simply get an actual Engineering degree and pass the actual Engineering licensing exam, and they really were wondering what the argument against just doing that was. Also, FTR, the PE’s in my office are almost universally opposed to the “industrial exemption”. They also want to know why an audio engineer doesn’t call themselves an “audio specialist”, “audio expert”, “audio technology designer”, or “audio technology Prima Donna”, instead of choosing to call themselves an “engineer”.
But those would be their opinions, and worth exactly as much as those of your offline friends.
No u were NOT an engineer
u probably worked for an engineer
some officer from an engineering school maybe even west point
who told you what bolt to put where.
Hope this answers your question.
Yep.
That’s exactly the problem.
Any value the title has is being eroded by its appropriation by the unqualified.
Those people who profess to not to understand why we are annoyed by this type of thing need to ask themselves why they want to be known as “engineers” themselves.
Dear pissed off engineer,
My neighbors are always borrowing something—a few stamps here, a bottle of window cleaner there. I’m doling out things left and right. I don’t want to be greedy, but, on the other hand, I’m not the corner grocery, either! What do you think?
—Can’t Say No In Novi
I tried to stay out of that thread and I’m gonna try to stay out of this one because this is not going to come to any conclusion. So I’ll just state my opinion and leave it at that.
First, there is no such thing as a plain “engineer”. There is always a qualifier. So it is meaningless to say someone is usurping the word. Why would a civil engineer care that someone else calls himself a tampon & vagina engineer.
Secondly, if the particular trade is licensed by the state then you already have the regulation of who may use the title “civil engineer” or whatever but that does not mean they own the words “civil” or “engineer” separately. If Microsoft wants to call their people who have passed certain requisites “Microsoft Certified Engineer”, why would that bother anyone? It just happens to be a title not recognised or regulated by the state. So what? As long as they use the full title then we all know what it means. If they just say “Engineer” then it means nothing. and if a MS engineer calls himself a “Civil Engineer” with the purpose of defrauding someone, well, it is just as bad as if Civil Engineer calls himself a MS Certified Engineer when he ain’t one.
Thirdly, one can be licensed in one jurisdiction and not in another. So I guess nobody is a “real” engineer because nobody is licensed worldwide. If an Electrical Engineer is licensed to practice in Texas should he be imprisoned if he hands me a business card calling himself an engineer when we are in Maryland? Gimme a break. Does a European Engineer cease to be one when he travels abroad?
To want to put so much weight in a single word is silly. An attorney will put on his card “Attorney at law” and then add “licensed to practice in MD, VA and DC” and still you’ll have to ask him what is his specialty field.
And, finally, what engineers think of the use of the term counts just as much as what anyone else thinks. The state which legislates these things represents (or should represent) everybody not just engineers. If everybody decides engineer is a perfectly good common word with a common meaning which should not be appropriated by a specific group, then that group will just have to deal with it. Just because you would like to have the exclusive right to a word does not mean you are entitled to it.
Exgineer, Anthracite: Hmmm…I got a little confused in the main thread trying to follow the exact thrust of all of the arguments.
Is the main argument you ( either of you ) are putting forward is that nobody should use the term “engineer” to describe themselves, unless they are a degreed professional in a traditional engineering field? If so, I agree, as the colloquial meaning of the word has the same connotation as “doctor” does - It refers to a specific type of profession and claiming that title in casual conversation ( as opposed to certain specific settings ) would be a misrepresentation IMHO.
Or are you arguing instead ( or as well ) that nobody but degreed professionals in traditional engineering fields should use the term “engineeer” anywhere in their job description? Because in that case, I disagree. I know quite a few “stationary engineers” and “operating engineers” ( actually, I am de facto one myself, though due to vagaries of different unions and job titles I am not referred to as one and don’t ever call myself one ), which are in a pretty venerable union ( turn of the century - so they are hardly jumping on some prestige bandwagon ) that started out as “steam engineers”. Not a one of them would have the gall to refer to themselves as an “engineer” ( and, to be honest, I have observed that some are actually mildly hostile towards engineers and vice-versa, due to an occasional institutional antagonism between the needs of those who design equipment and those who operate it ), but I have no problem with them referring to themselves as a “stationary engineer” because that is a valid and very specific job title.
Does this make me a “moderate” on this issue? 
- Tamerlane
No, Tamerlane, they’re saying that being a degreed professional in a tradtional engineering field isn’t enough. They’re saying you have to get a specific “Professional Engineer” license, which may have nothing whatsoever to do with the field you got your degree in and work in. The P.E. tests are for civil engineering and such - which has nothing to do with, say, microprocessor design.
To the person who asked what the PEO can do, well, most jurisdictions do have laws that restrict the use of ‘Engineer’ as desired by Una and Exgineer. But the law says one thing and common usage of the language says another, and it’s about like trying to legislate that you’ll be punished for saying “it’s me” when it should really, strictly, and technically speaking be “it’s I”.
Like some of the engineers on the board (I am not one, for those who don’t know), I agree pretty much that an appropriate BS degree should be the basic qualification for being able to call yourself an engineer. But sometimes I find myself questioning even that. Some engineer here told me that even today, some non- or differently-degreed people work their way into engineering jobs alongside of degreed engineers. Unfortunately the thread where this was said apparently disappeared in the Great Thread Die Off of late 2001, or I would link to it and ask the person who said that for a clarification in case I misunderstood.
If a person manages to do this by work experience alone, and achieves a job working equally with and alongside of real degreed engineers, then I have a real problem with the notion that said person can’t be called an engineer. Of course, it’s understood that this person has fully proved himself able to do the work using the necessary scientific/mathematical underpinnings, just as a degreed engineer would.
Why do we care…?
I’ve been asking myself this through all of these debates. Well, I know why the P.E.'s care. But why do the rest of us, and in particular myself, because I don’t use the job title engineer and I don’t believe in improperly appropriating it?
I think the non-engineers feel slighted. Not because any of us feel we should be able to use any job title we please, or because we can’t tell people at cocktail parties that we’re computer engineers when all we really are is the swing shift computer operator. No, the slighting comes from the impression that anyone working in technology who is not a P.E. is not professional. Some of the comparisons and analogies that have been made seem to imply that anyone who isn’t a P.E., or a graduate of an ABET approved BS program is somewhere between a nurse and a plumber’s assistant in their level of professional expertise.
I think this perception comes from the title “Professional Engineer” . “Articled Engineer” or “Registered Engineer”, or perhaps “Licensed Engineer” as an accolade wouldn’t be so bad, but no, you had to use “Professional Engineer”. Which pretty much throws everyone else out into the cold, except for those who are about to take, and pass, the licensing test. The OP here said they would extend the mantle of “Engineer” to an E.I.T. if they had never taken and failed the test! Exgineer, it sounds like if someone has gone through all the work even to be able to sit for the P.E. exam, and then they fail, you’d want a squad of goons to go over to his house and tear his stripes off. God! Some people have bad mornings, some times. I, myself, took a complete pass (200 - minimum score) on a GRE exam. I couldn’t show up for reasons which I will not elaborate, but you would probably agree were sound.
So am I an engineer? Of course not.
Am I a subprofessional worker? Fuck no.
I think that’s a stretch. There are all sorts of “professionals” in this world that are not Engineers.
Well, I’ve called myself a “software engineer” for a couple decades, and I think I’m entitled to without no steenking license. I do have a degree, hell, I have a grad degree. These days, even my employer says I’m an “engineer”. I will admit that previous ones have said I was a “<insert ascending ladder of adjectives> member of technical staff”.
Seriously, software R&D is still something that there is no universally recognized professional organization or licensing board for (there are specific IT certifications like the MCSE, but those really aren’t the same thing). Most software R&D organizations will require a degree, but nothing forces them to, and back in the 80’s some Silicon Valley companies were directly recruiting out of college classrooms, actually telling people not to bother finishing their degrees, just come to work for them instead. What we do qualifies as “engineering” - we design stuff. That said designs are eventually realized with a compiler rather than a backhoe or even on a printed circuit board doesn’t change that.
If not “engineer”, what DO you call the person that designs the browser you’re using to read this?
(And thank me for the straight line if you use it.)
Programmer? Designer? Program Designer? Programming Expert? Program Design Expert?
Gah! Sorry, I didn’t finish my original post:
The flipside, is that there is (more or less) for Engineering.
One result of all this bullshit is that I may be changing my stance a bit on some issues. So at least the discussion hasn’t been for naught.
Microsoft is definitely guilty of calling lots of employees engineers. Aside from MCSE and MCP exams, internally we put Engineer in our job titles. I’m a “Software Development Engineer” or SDE. Testers are “Software Test Engineers” or STEs. Of course, we never call ourselves this (we use Dev, Tester, PM) but I can see why it would be insulting to real PEs. My brother (BSEM, ME) had a debate with me about this when he first saw my business card. I assured him it was only a title and we don’t go around calling ourselves engineers.
One of the things that keep coming up in these threads is general ignorance of what engineering really is. We disagree on the extent of this ignorance, and the risk it exposes the public to. But I think we’re all agreed that the ignorance exists. As has been said, the average Joe doesn’t often have business contact with an engineer, the way he would with a doctor or perhaps a lawyer.
So, engineers, what are you really doing to combat that ignorance? Debating us here doesn’t really advance your cause, since everyone here understands the difference between P.E.'s, and EIT’s on one side, and all the other “operating engineers”, and what have you, on the other side. We’re just quibbling about terminology, but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand the distinction.
It seems to me some sort of public awareness campaign is in order, sort of like what realtors are doing. You’ve probably seen the spots they have that explain what they do, and then the tag line is “You have a life, we let you live it. Real estate is our life”. Why couldn’t you have a coordinated set of ads, some geared toward young people who might consider the profession, others towards the general public? You could have things like…“The Airplane That You’re Flying In was designed by Professional Engineers”, or advise prospective homebuyers that they can call on a civil or seismic engineer to evaluate a stability of the ground a house sits on. You could say that consulting engineers have to be licensed, and how to make sure that the person you’re thinking of consulting is licensed.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know APEGGA (the Alberta Assn) has taken out space in newspapers and magazines. I’d suspect that other Canadian assns have done the same.
I’m going to take one more rip at this and then quit.
I tried to objectively re-read my OP and it seems to more exclusionary than I actually intended.
I recognize that there is some gray area related to historical useage. I further recognize that some flavors of PE liscences aren’t crucial in many cases. If Tamerlane wants to call himself an “operating engineer” I won’t begin to kick.
My principal beef is, and always has been, the kind of crap Anthracite complained about in the GD thread. I think we can all agree that designating a day-care worker a “Child Care Engineer” is ridiculous. What is even worse is that Anthracite’s aquaintance seem to think that his BS title makes him her professional colleague.
Titles like “sanitation engineer” piss me off. “Maintenance Engineer” is worse in my mind, because it sounds like it means something like “facilities engineer” when it really just means “janitor.”
MSCE certifications are a lesser piss-off, but they’re still a piss-off. I see absolutely no way anyone could compare and MSCE to the years of education (formal and otherwise), experience and discipline we go through and not expect to be laughed at.
Our professional credibility is very valuable to us, and it’s constantly being eroded because every schmoe in the world feels entitled to call himself some kind of engineer.
I think this was well illustrated by all the posters here who weren’t even sure what engineering is.
Maybe I should just give a couple of personal anecdotes:
-
At a party, someone mentioned to someone else that I was an ME and I was told not to worry, because if I applied myself I was sure to work my way up to full-fledged auto mechanic.
-
When talking to a couple of dippy law students (don’t ask) about the Bar Exam, I mention something about the PE. They asked, “what’s a PE? Physical Education?”
Am I really wrong for being annoyed?