Liability of Unsealed/Unstamped Design/Calculations 8

[Jerehmy]

Hello,

Here's my issue. I'm an EIT who thought about making some extra cash on freelance job sites. I've been offered a job to design a retaining wall, but I'm having second thoughts because I don't want to put myself at risk legally.

Am I liable for a design if it is unsealed? Am I allowed to accept payment for the design since I'm not professionally registered?

They're just calculations, what they do with them is their responsibility. Is this a valid argument?


Thanks.

 

[cliff234]

To each his/her own. I got my BS degree in 1976. I started my career "on the board" detailing steel. I sat next to an old detailer (who was probably the age that I am today) who had been detailing steel for over 30 years. He did not have a degree. The things that he taught me were invaluable - and they were things that I would not have learned in school. That's not to say that I would not have learned those things two years later had I stayed in school for another two years for my MS. Actually, now that I think about it, I took four Master's level engineering courses during my undergraduate studies. The purpose of the pursuit of knowledge is not to get a degree - it's to learn things that will make us better engineers. That drive has to come from within. Mandatory requirements for engineers to get an MS is like forcing a kid to do his/her chores. They may not have their heart in it - so how much are they really learning? There has been a dilution in the undergraduate curriculum over the past several decades. Young engineers coming into our office today know much less about structural engineering than I knew when I graduated. The worse example I can think of is a young engineer who did not know what an A325 bolt was when we hired him. I had a graduate level course in connection design during my undergraduate years. Let's fix that problem. Make the undergraduate curriculum more focused on teaching engineering students the practical aspects of structural engineering so that when they start their first job they have a good foundation to build upon. And while we're at it, every engineering student should learn to weld! I design welds every day - and I have never welded! Also, I doubt that requirements making an MS degree mandatory will raise salaries. If anything, making an MS degree mandatory may dilute the MS curriculum - just as the BS curriculum has been diluted. Then in 20 years the debate will be whether to make a PhD the baseline for getting a PE license. I would prefer to see a series of five or six rigorous tests that engineers would have to pass to get an SE license. (Tests in structural analysis, steel design, concrete design, seismic design, etc.) Architects have to take seven exams to get their RA. Engineers typically only have to take two.

Hey Jerehmy - I graduated from Lehigh as well!