Opinion: the Board of Engineering is outdated and it hurts us all 8

[LockeBT]

Just had a conversation with my sister who’s a dentist. Surprisingly (not?) I learned that the Dental Boards are incredibly powerful and influential. They are heavily involved in politics and lobbying. It’s to protect their pay (one of the highest in all professions) and continue their prestigious professional status.

Which got me thinking about our Board. Simply put, we’re comically outdated. It’s not a realization that I have to dig deep for either.

-In an age of specialists we’re still lumped with all the other engineering disciplines, surveyors and architects. Heck, even within the Civil Engineering umbrella it’s already distinctive between structural, geotechnical, civil, environmental, etc...
-This is the board that still allows Architects to design 1-2 story residential buildings (there are limitations but still, shouldn’t be there to begin with). It waters down our technical skills. Such a dumb move because it sends off the sentiment that we’re not that specialized since someone else can do it. Even a portion of it. I get that Architects used to be the jack-of-all-trades but that was about 70 years ago. That’s how I know the board is full of archaic old timers with outdated thinking.
-There’s no protection for our pay. In the private sector you’re pretty much competing with each other. There’s always an engineer lowballing their service fees and ends up getting the job. In order to remain competitive other firms follow suit and the fees drop altogether.
-The values of the licenses are completely incoherent and inconsistent. To be competitive as a Civil Engineer or Structural Engineer you MUST have your licenses. The same can’t be said about MEs or EEs. It’s an optional bonus for them rather than baseline.

I don’t mean to come off unprofessional and ranty but it’s a sad reality we need to address for our profession. The board needs to break up. It needs an overhaul. There should be one residing over each discipline (I would go as far as saying there should be one for the structural engineers only). Not all lumped together because we “share fundamentals”. Doctors, pharmacists and dentists share massive chemistry and biology fundamentals too and they all have their own board.

 

[JStephen]

The state boards are set up to regulate the profession, not to protect the profession or advocate for the profession. If the engineering that gets done, gets done properly, then the boards are doing their work. If we all go broke in the process, that's not their concern.
Personally, I don't have a lot of problem with the way things are set up, or with the testing or qualification that goes on. While I can think of various major and minor tweaks, pretty much any change is going to benefit one person and hurt another.
On the comments on people hiring their own engineers- I think the result is about as would be expected. Most people aren't in a position to ever need that service. It's like comparing the need for a doctor to the need for, say, a podiatrist. It doesn't mean the profession is more or less worthwhile or valued, just that most people don't have the specific problem that would require consultation with that specialist.

 

[WARose]

How many people come on these boards, claiming to be a junior structural engineer, and their questions are pure statics? So perhaps the grade itself isn't the perfect metric, but there should be something to better evaluate a candidate's aptitude for a particular field of engineering.

Good point....but I'm not sure what the metric would be.

In actuality, I've known several who graduated with fantastic grades but just didn't make it as engineers because they just couldn't put it all together. They turned everything into a research project.

 

[LockeBT]

JStephen,

I work in CA btw. I wonder who regulates the board requirements. The DCA?

I understand the boards are set up to regulate the profession. I believe part of regulation entails standardizing engineering fees (at least minimum fees). However one of the comments above mentioned that it's beyond their functions. Which is unfortunate if you ask me. Because it creates a sphere of cannibalism and dissolves intra-professional support. What I mean is that in the private sector, unless you are a CEO or one of the principals within a firm, having an SE is a disadvantage. As in, heck, why pay for an SE when a PE can be trained to do the same thing with lower pay? That's not economical. The principal engineers will use their SE stamps anyway, they don't need another SE unless there is something extremely specialized.

Until this day, I still wonder why I had to take the Surveying Exam for my PE. As in...why? The Seismic Exam makes sense because that's truly state-specific since CA is a high seismic region. But Surveying? Who added this? What are the justifications for this? Is it just to make money? I failed the exam my Surveying Exam first time and I have no idea how I passed my 2nd time. Sometimes I wonder if I even deserve my PE lol. Point is the CA Board is outdated with that requirement. I understand students are to be exposed and trained in CE related disciplines (including Surveying). But that is purely for the sake of academics. The PE Exam is a PROFESSIONAL exam. It should hold the standards of...well, professionals. As in, it should be applicable and relevant to the work. I have honestly not used a single thing I have learned in Surveying ever since. Studying for it was a waste of time/resource for me. I was going through the uninterested motion of learning something knowing I will never ever use it. If I take it today I will fail miserably.

Also, whose idea is it to require me to pay for my PE and my SE license renewal? I mean it isn't much but it's so backwards. The SE license is a higher tier version of the PE correct? Why treat them as 2 separate licenses?

Perhaps this comes off as incoherent rant and my gripe is misguided and misplaced. It might not be the board after all. I have only worked for 10 years and (please tell me I'm wrong) I can sense the decline in our profession. I think we do such a good job that it self-penalizes. Buildings aren't collapsing. Structures perform overall pretty well barring extreme events. Majority of our work is over-designed (for good reasons) and better performing than ever. All those factors in unison lower the demand for our work (and pay). It's the reality I find hard to swallow.

 

[phamENG]

LockeBT - to your point about the board fixing prices...I certainly don't agree with that - particularly in a state as large as California. What baseline would you tie it to? You'd either end up charging market rate for downtown San Francisco and nobody in Salinas would ever be able to hire an engineer, or the other way around and leave pilesmountains of cash on the table when you do work in San Francisco. Fixing prices will either hurt the consumers (and, indirectly, the profession) or hurt the profession directly.

One 'solution' that I've heard of...I think it was Alabama that was considering it a few years back?...not allowing fixed fee proposals. You'd be required to charge by the hour. It's an imperfect system, since I'm sure you could agree over lunch to not do more than X hours, but it's something. I don't completely support it, since hourly projects limit my margins and properly negotiated lump sum projects are significantly more lucrative, but I can see an advantage if you have trouble with your budgets. By doing it time and material/ cost plus you may not feel as much pressure to send a project out half cocked as you would if you burn through a tight fee and only have half the engineering done.

WARose - also true. I wonder if there's be a way to establish some sort of 'certified' internship. It could ensure (or at least increase the chances of) meaningful exposure and experience in the practice of engineer and weed out the high academic performers that can't function in practice from the good junior engineers. If ABET put it together and made it a degree requirement under their accreditation system, then it could have an impact. But it also feels like it would need to be part of an accredited master's program - once the student has a 4 year degree and has chosen their specialty, they do 6 months to a year of one of these internships in that specialty and it satisfies a requirement for their master's program. Internships prior to graduation are beneficial, sure, but I know for me the only structural classes before senior year were statics and structural analysis 1 - everything else was a 400 level requirement or elective, so I would have been utterly useless to a structural firm. When I took my FE exam, I had no idea what the wide-flange available moment curves were - I'd never seen them before.

 

[drawoh]

LockeBT,

Are buildings falling down because they were designed by architects? You have to make your case.

From Reason.com: Minnesota Threatens To Fine This Engineer for Calling Himself an Engineer.

--
JHG

 

[JLSE]

phamENG-
I didnt read through all of your posts, but I read the first. I generally agree. I want to say two things: 1.) I don't think we need to require post graduate education for SE's. Even without it, we still put in an equivalent amount of time, including apprenticeship or qualifying experience, and testing as a general practitioner... and as you become competent as an SE, you realize it takes ten years of experience before you are capable of going solo. Although a post graduate education starts you out ahead, I dont think you necessarily end up there after that ten years. 2.) I am convinced, the pay difference has everything to do with working for private owners. As you noted, insurance companies pay more... but so do government agencies. Even my CE buddies get paid better.... because they contract with the government. I know SE's who design bridges..... who also get paid much better. Not only do they work primarily for government agencies... but they also DONT WORK FOR ARCHITECTS.

Bottom line is, this is a great profession but a terrible business....

BTW- 120 jobs? Really? I do like 25, although I could do maybe twice that... if my newly launched practice would take off....

To comment on the original post- I dont think its the boards job to standardize pay. Even the AIA no longer does that. What I try to remember, is my clients dont know anything about what I do. So, I explain it. And I explain what the next guy might and might not do, for the lower fee. And I dont want to work for the client that just wants a rubber stamp... Ive put too much time into my profession, to pimp it out.

 

[KootK]

FYI: there's a free NCSEA webinar tomorrow that sounds at though it will touch on some of the issues raised in this thread and on this forum in general. I've created a separate thread for it here: Free NCSEA Webinar June 17th - Elevating the Public Perception of Structural Engineers