New to Ontario: Mandatory CPD 1

[SinStrucEng]

Good day everyone,

For my Ontario colleagues mostly, but I welcome all feedback and advice. I am a structural engineer with my own firm and this year (2023) is the first year our licensing body - PEO - requires CPD (continuous professional development). Their description of this is as follows:

Examples of activities include studying and reading, attending seminars and webinars, passing technical courses, delivering engineering lectures, presentations or publications, developing engineering guidelines, and participating in technical mentoring. Taken from PEO's site: Link

Pretty simple question to the crowd - what are your plans to meet your CPD requirements? Does anyone know where to sign up for online courses tailored to structural engineers and designers? I went to the local construction association but they mostly cater to Project Managers and I worry that PEO will not accept those courses as they are not tailored or designed with engineers in mind. Thoughts? Suggestions? Recommendations?

Thanks, SinStrucEng

 

[skeletron]

I see lots of Struct's from ON participating in the SEABC courses and EGBC training seminars. I actually think those end up being the "best bang for your buck". Essentially $50 per hour and your full hours for the year plus.

 

[SinStrucEng]

Thanks Skeletron, that's interesting. I took at look at SEABC just now. Very similar to undergraduate courses. I saved that resource. My only reservation is that they're fairly "formal" - actual class times and then also testing. With small kids in the house and both of us working, that's a little tough for me.

 

[jmec87]

One of the example activities is "developing engineering guidelines". This would probably include volunteering on committees that develop standards (through ASTM, ASME, etc.), which can be free (and a good way to both learn and contribute).

 

[skeletron]

I think you can audit classes, which enables you to view the recorded class without having to write the assignments or exams. My understanding is that, because of the increase in Eastern Standard Time students, they can make allowances for viewing the course at a later time and gaining credit. Probably an easy email to send to see if that works.

You could also go through SJI, ACI, or AISC webinars. I don't think there is a lot of Canadian-specific content out there.

 

[dik]

I'm a member of the Steel Tube Institute and the AISC... members have access to excellent webinars, in particular from the STI... There are also a lot of complimentary webinar, too. We have PD in Manitoba... and I generally record only a few of the items... can't be bothered to do the whole thing... only record slightly more than the min. There's just too much stuff.

It's interesting that with PD, I've not seen an improvement in the profession... still going downhill... maybe without PD it would be worse. (just my own observation). I think the professions would improve if they required employees of the association to have a minimum of 20 years of real engineering practice, and only licensed practicing engineers.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[skeletron]

Nah, I think PD or CPD or whatever you want to term it, is important. There is going to be so much loss of information with the resignations, retirements, and layoffs in the next 5-10 years. I think it can be really beneficial to early and middle career engineers. Maybe the PD needs to take a different form...discussion based seminars, basic design concept reviews, case studies, etc. My issue with some of the easy-to-acquire CPD out there is that it's the same stuff hashed up: reciting of code book sections, demonstration of high level research results, novel (but not common) product marketing, etc.

Still lots of good CP out there. Older guys gotta encourage the younger crew to take it in; that wasn't the case when I was coming up. We just knew there was going to be some pizza after the seminars.

 

[geotechguy1]

The idea of CPD is good, the implementation is terrible. Both professional associations I've worked under you can basically put half your time to reading a textbook or something as CPD, attend a conference, couple of internal trainings / youtube lectures, and that's it. No one will ever question it.

Maybe if we all had to re-pass an F.E / P.E. exam every 6 years or had a pathway for engineers to become Project Management Professionals and drop their PE / PENG license when they transition into project management / management (which seems to be most 'engineers').

 

[SinStrucEng]

Thanks for the tips regarding STI and AISC, dik. Helpful. I added those to my list and I think that in the coming months or so I will go through what I've saved and chose "the best". Eh, it's a year long project in one way or another...

Regarding the concept and implementation of CPD. I agree with Skeletron that it's important and that the loss of information between generations of engineers is substantial. The issue is made worse because (in my experience) the older generation didn't or doesn't seem to care much in educating the youngers. It sucks, and maybe I had a bad experience, but that's how it was for me. A lot of the older guys are now managers and focus on business while the younger folks are stuck in software, doing repeat designs over and over, iterations with minimal changes, etc.

Geotechguy1 is right too. The implementation is terrible. I wish that they took a little longer and came up with structured programs to the CPD. Maybe partnered with a university per province, came up with courses, lectures, etc. Instead, they let you do the searching and then tell you if it qualifies/doesn't qualify as CPD. Seems backwards to me.

This is all IMO, of course.

 

[dik]

The STI has excellent webinars on HSS available to members and the AISC has access to an incredible resource in documentation.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

Fifty years ago, that wasn't the case. I still remember Arnold Crosier and Paul Krauss sitting down and discussing design issues, and they were the principals of the firms. The profession has changed in so many ways.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[geotechguy1]

Dik - it seems most large engineering firms are managed by corporate teams made entirely of people with finance / MBA backgrounds. At mine there are I think 3 layers of corporate management teams purely made of finance people, then multiple layers of managers who either aren't engineers / never done any actual engineering or who haven't done engineering work for 20 years. I'm not convinced our executive management even knows what the business is that they run or what it does.

Then somewhere many layers down is some poor bastard making $30/hr with a $250/hr chargeout rate but expected to deliver to a quality / knowledge standard as if he actually had access to information on the huge number of projects his firm has delivered across the world.