Engineering license?

Great Debates
41

I didn’t want to answer this question and get into this, largely since since most of it is IMO. However, since I may be forced to permanently leave the board very soon, I thought I better answer now. Of course, these things are completely IMO, and I do not want to go into in depth every point I would normally make.

You don’t see it happening - well, I do. Our media is filled with positive representations of careers of Journalists, Lawyers, Doctors, and Police - these are the Big Four professions that make for good Prime Time or Cinema. Engineers are cast consistantly in roles of being “nerds”, social losers, freaks, bit-characters, or the “mad scientist types”. Name one show about Engineers that was in Prime Time - I sure as hell can’t think of one. Dilbert is an interesting example - while many people are laughing with Dilbert, many are laughing at him, when he is cast as the technology-obsessed-sloppily-dressed-can’t-get-a-date-loser.

There was a popular culture book released in the late 1980’s - “The Decline and Fall of American Education”. IIRC, one point that is made in there is about how scientists and engineers used to be hailed by the media for their accomplishments - the great innovations of automobiles, of physics, of consumer products, of public works. Until the 1960’s - where the liberal youth of that era that were terrified of living under the bomb, and wanting to exist in a much more simpler, existing happily in a pre-industrial paradise with nothing but free love and drugs. And in that author’s view (I may be thinking of some further essays of his I read) liberals blamed scientists and engineers for making the bomb, and pollution, and guns, and machines that grew more and more complex the average person cannot understand them at all, yet must go out and buy them to “keep up with the Jones’s”.

IIRC, this and other essays I read made me wonder, as a lot of the liberal journalists of today grew up as teens in the 1960’s, how much these feelings might be shared, and how much it might explain the poor casting of engineers and scientists in media, or their complete omission (I don’t knwo which is worse)

Every child knows what Doctors, Lawyers, Police, and Journalists do. They see it on TV, or their teachers tell them. Hell, I was a lot smarter and more educated than most people in my HS, but by the time I graduated I really had no idea what an engineer was or did. And what’s scary is when I talk to most all teachers of our children - Elementary through High School - almost none of them have any real idea what engineers do. However, they are always quick to bring up something though like “Oh, my Uncle is a Window Washing Engineer - is that like what you do?”

And people will come back and say “Yes, but what engineers do is boring to most people, relative to what lawyers and doctors do.”

THAT IS BULLSHIT!

The average lawyer, and I work with a lot of them, leads a professional existance that makes mine look like a night on the town. The average doctor is bored to tears doing routine, minor procedures, staff meetings, searching for lost charts and sitting on the phone asking why tests weren’t done, or just … waiting (remember - my SO is a doctor - I know this). And journalists - dear God, I can’t imagine just what goes through the heads of network executives to put 10 different shows a season about the glamorous, rewarding career of journalism in Prime Time. Not to denigrate the profession, but come on! Most all journalists I know lead professional lives that are exactly as exciting as mine - which is not very.

Cops are the exception, as they do have many more professional encounters that make for good TV. But why must every season there be the obligatory 10 shows about cops? After watching or having seen tens of thousands of hours of cop shows, police dramas, whaterver, I’d think even the average Americans would be able to figure out the plot - Cops good, Criminals bad.

Anyhow, like I said, this is all IMO and I am not offering hard-and-fast “facts” to back it up.

42

I do agree that media, as represented by popular TV does
denigrate most professions by default. If it isn’t cops, lawyers, or doctors, it doesn’t get in. Or it may be other
careers that have a glamor cachet in one form or another, such as a WORKING actor, comedian, musician. I don’t think
this sort of thing is intentional, because it’s based more on what the the network believes people want to see, but
it does have the effect of marginalization.

You might say that most science fiction programs, dealing so heavily with technology as they do are about engineering in a way, even if the underlying “science” is completely off base. The approaches and attitudes, though seem reasonably
accurate in the sense that technology is applied to the
problem, often in a crisis situation. Unfortunately this
is not brought out in a way that clearly shows what the profession is. Instead, after Scotty saved the enterprise,
we usually cut over Captain Kirk with his latest paramour.
In any case, sci-fi is somewhat marginalized itself.

You’re right about the blame factor. You’ll recall that
programmers were supposed to be the targets of mad mobs after the Y2K disaster which didn’t happen. The cultural shift that began in the 1960’s has without a doubt lessened
the perceived value of technology and technological accomplishments, even while we make tremendous strides. In this regard I was sad to see that the new dollar coins no longer show the eagle on the moon. It seems to say that
the moon landings were just a historical blip of the sixties and seventies, and not an epochal event.

43

MacGyver?

Anthracite, you’re leaving the board permanently? No! You were so close to achieving that SDSAB status as the queen of carbon. There’s not many of us whose nicks are hard and lumpy.

44

Perhaps I’m just displaying my ignorance here, but just what is it that sets engineers apart from non-engineers? If I look at a chemical engineer and a civil engineer, it doesn’t look like they’re doing much of the same thing… The ChemE looks a lot more like a chemist than like a civil engineer. Care to enlighten me?

NOTE: I’m not saying that there isn’t something that defines “engineers”, I’m just not sure what it is.

45

Well, this is a hard question, because there are a few different ways to look at it.

Ignoring what the dictionary says, I’ll relate my view of the practical difference between engineers and related non-engineering professions. Note that there are seeral exceptions to each, but I think this is pretty close.

Engineers are supposed to be applying fundamental science and research to things that directly benefit and effect non-scientists, that is, the general public. A chemist is typically a person doing basic research or specific research on a chemical process. A chemical engineer determines how this research can be applied to be used in industry.

Example - a chemist discovers how to synthesize a new type of amino acid that extends female orgasm to hours, or even days. The chemical engineer figures out how to take this laboratory synthesis process and translate it into a large-scale process at a factory, so the company can start cranking out the amino acid by the truckload. The chemical engineer designs this process, knows what equipment needs to be custom-designed or purchased from vendors, knows how to go about actually requisitioning and scheduling delivery and construction of the equipment, finds and hires the skilled craftswomen to start working on it (large parts of this are done by other engineers, such as civil/structural, mechanical, electrical, and so forth).

Note that the chemist is not ignored or left out of this procedure. The chemical engineer has to work with her to make certain that what she designs to replicate the chemical process on the industrial scale actually does adequately replicate the process.

The chemical engineer also does analysis of toxicity in the real world, permitting and regulations for both safety and environmental impacts (regarding the factory itself, not product safety issues or specific human toxicity - those would fall back to the chemist and medical researchers), studies of the effects of accidental releases due to an industrial accident, dispersion cloud studies, studies on affects of long-term storage and storage conditions, transportation modes and relative risk, even assisting in the economic analysis and levelized breakeven cost of the factory.

The two halves cannot typically work well independent of each other. The chemist researches and invents the fundamentals, and the engineer applies them. There is a large bit of overlap between the two, but both halves serve distinct purposes.

46

…was it designed by a member of the Union of Sheetmetal Engineers?:smiley:

47

Arjuna, as a non-engineer, that certainly clears it up for me. If someone just says ‘Engineer’ I don’t know what they are, but
if they qualify it as you do, then I know that they probably excelled at math in secondary school, that they
took at least a four year degree in an engineering school or department, and so on. Moreover, I know that they apply rigorous principles of math and science in their work, for example when calculating whether a post will stand the weight it must support in a building, or whether a proposed
logic circuit is as efficient as possible.

Anthracite, could the solution lie in qualified professional designations, e.g. Professional <fill in the specialization> Engineer?

48

javaman, there is an official qualified professional designation. It’s the P.E. title (Professional Engineer). It is only legal to be used by a person who has completed the requirements and is board certified in their state. This typically includes at least a bachelors in some engineering discipline, the EIT (Engineer In Training, also called Fundamentals of Engineering, FE) exam, some years of experience in the field (4?), and then the PE exam. Plus maintaining qualifications through continued education, etc.

The P.E. can be appended after the name, just the way an M.D. would use those letters or a Ph.D. could use those letters. What does a lawyer use? Oh wait, I don’t really care.

That is part of the solution, and it is being actively pursued. The boards make big issues out of anyone proclaiming themselves as an “engineer” who is not certified. That is part of protecting the status of the title P.E. It is so strong, that my company had to stop letting us have business cards proclaiming us as “engineers” even though most of us have degrees and do engineering work, unless we have our P.E. certification.

Regarding what separates engineers from other related fields, a scientist does research into a process or new application, typically from the standpoint of learning how to do it or why it works. An engineer takes the science and applies it to some function. Technology comes not just from scientists, but from engineers. Pure R&D finds what can be done and why it works. Applied R&D looks at how to make it practical and useful. Both are necessary for an increasing technology base. Without Applied R&D, the Pure R&D is useless, impractical, and considered a waste by many. (Superconducting Super Collider, who needs that?) Without Pure R&D, the applied stuff has nothing to draw upon. It eventually stagnates. Sometimes you see fiscally tight people advocating only applied R&D to save money, not understanding the vital role Pure R&D plays in giving the raw materials to the Applied R&D folks.

And actually, even Applied R&D can have scientists and engineers overlapping. Engineers are the implementation end.

49

About years ago I was corresponding with a distant cousin who was compiling a family genealogy. When seeing his stationery I was mystified by the designation ‘PE’ after his name, and only after learning that he was a retired engineer (having done a lot of work in power plants, like Anthracite), was I able to guess what it stood for.

Yes I realize that it has become the preferred designation among engineers themselves, but I think the problem you’re facing is that the various nonprofessional usages of the word ‘Engineer’ have become so firmly entrenched in the language. By this I don’t mean puffed up job titles for
such occupations as trash collector or window washer, but
older ones such as train engineer where the worker does
command a significant amount of specialized knowledge, even if it’s not what we think of as engineering today.

(Brief aside: how about ‘flight engineers’ on airliners? Are they trained comparably to professional engineers, or are they just control-panel jockeys?)

Not to deny the value and meaning of licensure, but do the licenses indicate what branch of engineering you have qualified in? It would seem necessary, otherwise you could theoretically have an EE signing off on a power plant design. At any rate, for the general public only mentioning the branch, as Arjuna does seems to clarify the issue in our minds.

Maybe the various professional engineering societies should
consider a public relations blitz? I just saw something along those lines for board-certified architects.

50 
 As a programmer I don't exactly agree with your position on this.

 First, I don't think the degree is essential to being a good programmer. Most of what they teach in college has little to do with programming in the real world. The actual body of knowledge required is quite small and can be obtained by reading. Practice is also required, but I don't think school does much in this regard.

 Furthermore, I oppose licensing for programmers not involved in safety-dependant programming. However, I would like to see something different--government testing. Anyone who wants to be a programmer would have to go take a government test of their ability to program. It would be graded but there's no pass/fail--you simply get a grade. To be considered a programmer, you must present test results no more than 5 years old. This lets the person hiring the programmer to know what they are really getting. A certain minimum score would be required for anyone designing a system that conceivably could cause injury if the program failed.
51

You might be interested in what the Association for Computing Machinery has to say
about licensing software engineers (not sure if that includes programmer analysts generally). From what I’ve seen the ACM tends to attract the most dedicated programmers, including the ones who are most rigorously trained, yet they oppose licensure according to the standards of the IEEE, saying that it would exclude too many competent, even excellent practitioners who do not use
the knowledge for which the IEEE exams would test.

Personally I don’t think it would be a bad idea to have some sort of certification process such as Loren suggests. Whether or not we have the degree, we ultimately end up working with pretty much the same set of principles. There’s certainly a “body of knowledge” which is common to just about everyone who programs, beyond the specifics of individual languages or projects.

52

Kyberneticist, did you mean differentiate, rather than integrate? I’ve never heard of any particular problems with integrating discontinuous functions.

53

The definition of the definite integral in almost any introductory calculus book is the Riemann definition, and the textbooks are careful to point out that the definition does not work for discontinuous functions. More advanced math classes do treat discontinuous functions. See my previous post to this thread for links.

54

I should have said “I’ve never heard of any particular problems with integrating discontinuous functions with finitely many discontinuities.”

My introductory calculus book has the theorem If f has only finitely many points of discontinuity on [a,b] and if there is a positive number M such that -M <= f(x) <= M for all x in [a,b], then f is [Riemann] integrable on [a,b]. Also, from the definition at your Riemann integral link, a finite number of discontinuities shouldn’t be a problem.

I can see where your function f(x)=1 if x is irrational, and f(x)=0 if x is rational is not Riemann integrable, but I have a hard time imagining such a function appearing in a physics or engineering class.

55

I suppose they won’t mind this wild hijack. Crazy engineers.

My intro calc book said “The definite integral exists also even when certain kinds of discontinuities are allowed, but that is a matter beyond the scope of this textbook,” (Schwartz, Calculus and Analytic Geometry, 2ed., p.77) and another that I taught from, (Salas and Hille, Calculus) limits its definition of integral (Theorem B.5.1) to continuous functions. To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all this, and had to look it up.

I am curious as to why the word Riemann appears in brackets in the quote from your textbook.

56

I added the word Riemann for clarification. In the text immediately above, it says “If the integral does exist, then f is said to be Riemann integrable or simply integrable on [a,b].” which I take to mean the two terms are used interchangably in this book. The bold italics are actually in the book, and seem to be used the first time a term is used in the book.

For the record, the book is “Calculus with Analytic Geometry” by Howard Anton, 1980. The referenced text is in section 5.7 page 327.

Also, “Lesbesgue” and “Stieltjes” don’t appear in the index at all.

57

The integral definition I quoted above is actually part (b) of the theorem. Part (a) is the simpler version: If f is continuous on [a,b], then f is integrable on [a,b].

Presumably, a continuous function is already bounded, so it doesn’t need to be explicitly stated.

58

Licensure for programmers would be a very, very bad idea. For several reasons. One is that we’re already critically short of programmers, and huge numbers of working programmers wouldn’t qualify.

Second, it’s very hard to come up with an exam that would separate ‘good’ programmers from bad. Computer programming has been become so fractured into so many different specialties that you couldn’t hope to have one certification test. So now you’d have to have separate tests for Database Administrators, Java programmers, embedded system guys, etc.

Third, programming itself isn’t that tough. What makes a programmer great are the other skills he brings to the table - creativity, intelligence, knowledge of the specific application, etc.

The last thing is important - if I need to write software to calculate stresses in a truss, it’s a lot easier for me to hire a structural engineer and teach him how to program than it is to hire a degreed programmer and teach him structural engineering. So you find that a lot of the best programmers in industry have degrees in subjects specific to that industry rather than in computing science. Licensure would close off access to a lot of those people, to our detriment.

I’m not a big fan of licensure in general. Too often it is used as a way to exclude people from an industry in order to keep demand (and salaries) high.

59

I didn’t see anyone answer this, so…

A ‘Flight Engineer’ in a big jet is just the most junior-ranking pilot on the flight-deck. In aircraft that require a 3-person crew, the FE is typically in charge of monitoring and controlling all the systems in the aircraft not directly related to the flight controls. That can include fuel systems, lighting, communications, etc.

The position does not require an education other than what is required to get a commercial pilot’s license. And you don’t even need a high school diploma for that.

In the real world, the flight engineer (and the other pilots in a large jet) is likely to have a college degree in something, and a type rating in the aircraft which means he has to have studied all the manuals and passed a test on all of its systems.

Finally, modern automation is making the FE position slowly obsolete. Most of the newest airliners only require a 2-person cockpit.

60

But first, thanks to Sam Stone for answering my question about flight engineers.

I read in the L.A. Times Magazine yesterday that most of the
old bridges across the Los Angeles River were designed by
one Butler Merill, who rose to become the head of the Bridges Department in the City Engineer’s Office. He learned his engineering in correspondence school. This was
60 or 70 YA, and I guess that was the golden age of correspondence schools, so he probably got some pretty good
training, but I doubt if he had a degree. He never went to college, and learned his profession on the job.

Well, I gotta say, if he successfully did this archetypical
engineering task, it seems to me he’s an engineer, though
I wouldn’t have granted him the right to use the designation
P.E. Still, to paraphrase the old proverb about walking like a duck–if he builds bridges like an engineer, then
isn’t he an engineer?

This doesn’t mean I deny the value of the degree, or the licensure process. Nor do I think the case of Butler Merill
is terribly applicable today. But it seems that there are always outstanding exceptions who do learn their stuff on the job.