Protesting ASCE's Raise the Bar Initiative 49

[gendna2]

I sent this to ASCE's Raise the Bar Folks. Doubt it will change anything because it seems like they have their mind made up. Only way to fight it is through state legislators; however, I wanted to share my thought with y'all if you're bored.

My opinion:

I am thoroughly against making an MS degree mandatory for a PE license and even more so against making an SE license separate from a PE license in all states. Essentially, it comes down to freedom, and the most important freedom, when you really think about it, is market freedom.

When does it all end? When do we, as a society, allow people to make mistakes, fail, sometimes even die, but let it be a person's individual choice. Individual choice is the crux of Christian thought; God could have easily made us automatons, but He let us choose between good and evil.

Engineers will fail, construction contractors will fail, maintenance plans will fail, money will be lost, people will perish. However; in a free market economy, one of individual choices, those engineers, contractors, maintainers, poor practices...all those people will go out of business, they will cease to exist.

I don't advocate extreme libertarianism; but the way we do business now is fine. We have a good system in place to protect the public and we give our engineers with PEs the ability to make the ethical decision whether to stamp or not to stamp drawings.

What I see as we push for the MS and the SE is a zero-fault system, with the drawbacks of implicit "guildism" but on a modern, professional level. Do we need a PE stamp with an MS degree behind it to design a basic storm drainage system, or to design sidewalks and intersections in a new subdivision? Do we really need an SE license to design a two story apartment building, or a 100 foot span bridge? In Illinois, a paragon of American economic stagnation, the answer is yes to both; along with licenses for every other thing under the sun.

This is the same "safety culture" that on federal contracts doubles the price of the work. It is a no fault, no mistake, will bear any economic price, type of thinking that is only going to add more regulation to the system.

Let's get back to that bar; instead of raising, how about we at least maintain it and really look at it. I can understand why people are frustrated with the quality of new engineers these days, but instead of a knee jerk reaction, let's do the harder things and look at the real problems.

I went to a prestigious university where students had the ability to choose a primary and secondary field of focus in their BS. We had to choose between Transportation (easy), Construction Management (very easy), Structural (hard), Geotechnical (hard), Water Resources Engineering (normal), and Environmental (no idea....but we'll come back to Environmental).

So what do you think a lot of students picked at this prestigious school? Construction Management + Transportation. Basically, we are still graduating students with no knowledge in reinforced concrete design, steel design, or foundation design. I don't need an engineer to be an expert in these courses, but it seems like a basic knowledge of foundations, steel, and concrete ought to be something a civil engineer should know. If I were ABET, I'm not sure I would accredit my alma matter.

To make matters worse, because of "sustainability" my alma matter added two more focus areas. These are real gems, when you look at the course requirements, you can conceivably get a degree in "Civil and Environmental Engineering" while taking nebulous courses in things like society and the environment. Sustainability is a practice; not something you devote fundamental engineering courses to. It's best left to the world of real engineering, where graduates will certainly get their fill of LEED.

Even my degree is fundamentally flawed. I have a degree in "Civil and Environmental Engineering". This is ridiculous, I've never taken an environmental engineering class. Until I finally found out that this used to be called "sanitary engineering", i.e. fecal management, I never was able to really wrap my head around this environmental thing. Of course, environmental engineering is about more than that; especially how to clean up toxic sites and comply with EPA regulations...but I'm not an environmental anything, and I don't want to be.

Another fallacy often thrown around is that these days, we are taking less credit hours than our predecessors...presumably in the 50s or 60s. If we take 16 hours a semester, which is about the limit for a reasonable brainiac, we get 128 hours to get an engineering degree. Throw in a couple of summer courses and maybe that semester where you took 18...and forgot half the information by Christmas, and you're in the 130s.

Now I worked harder in engineering college than ever before, and even harder than my job. My peers did the same. Many of us took 5 years total to finish. Even my peers who picked the easier Transportation + Const. Management path worked very hard.

We all took 4 levels of Calculus, the last being Differential Equations. We all took linear algebra, and 3 levels of Physics, including an electro-magnetism course. We had two levels of chemistry, and 18 hours of general education courses, a class that mashed CAD, with drafting, and 3-d hand sketching, a class that mashed Matlab, with C and Unix. The list goes on.

When I speak to some of the older engineers from the 50s and 60s; honestly, their education does not sound as difficult. On paper they had more credit hours, but in terms of actual work, their life seemed easier. This is anecdotal, but many of them did not seem to have needed as much calculus as us, maybe 2-3 levels maximum; and their load just seemed easier. It was definitely also a lot easier to get into a good school back then.

I really believe we are comparing apples to oranges when we compare these engineering degrees that required 140 hours plus with our load today. Something does not add up; because there is no way you could cram more classes into my schedule. It's almost insulting when I read these comments, because I remember how I had no life, was absorbed 24/7 in my studying just to keep up...and then I read an article talking about how I didn't have enough hours in my degree.

Again, God given personal choice is a factor here. Some schools in the US are definitely easier than others; not all engineering schools were created the same. The caliber of freshmen in some schools is hard to compare with others. Maybe that's why we see some low quality engineers out there, jump to conclusions, and decide that the MS is the solution. Maybe the solution is for a company to be more selective in its hiring practices; to ask some fundamental technical questions at the interview; to delve into the actual courses one took, and not just behavioral questions. Did you know Samsung actually has a GRE style test for prospective management employees?

Here's one thing I learned at a community college that was sorely lacking in my prestigious curriculum; full of "sustainability". Land surveying, the bread and butter that civil engineering was built on. I learned that and it completely changed how I visualized and thought as an engineer.

My question to you, those that keep pushing to "raise the bar", is this.

What do you do when John Doe, the "Construction Management + Transportation" BS now gets an online MS in Sustainable Construction Management to fulfill your requirement of "raising the bar"?

 

[SNORGY]

If people go down this path, it really ought to become an "all or nothing" thing, the way it is for physicians. You either are a Doctor, or you aren't. So, forget about the delineation between MS and PhD - in the end, that's all BS, so to speak. Impose the requirement that there is only one degree, and that degree is Engineering, and to obtain a degree in Engineering, you need a PhD.

I am not in support of a system wherein, "If you ONLY have a Bachelor's degree, you can ONLY do [this], whereas if you have a Master's degree, you can do [this plus that], whereas, if you have a PhD, you can do [this plus that plus everything else].". Suppose you need someone to size a separator. An engineer with a BSc can do that using various equations and applying some empirical correlations, in balance with some judgement. An engineer with an MSc can do it, maybe faster or slower, but can derive the equations from first principles. An engineer with a PhD can do it, but can also derive new and better equations that revolutionize the "science" (or, for the supercilious among us, the Oompa-Loompa Pseudo-Science) of separator technology towards the invention of better separators. So, let's adopt the attitude that only the PhD is appropriately qualified for the task, because only the PhD actually knows enough about what's really going on to do it properly.

OK - really?

I worked with a recent grad who had not one but two Master's degrees, one in Chemical Engineering and one in Mechanical Engineering. This individual not only couldn't size a separator; neither could the person size a pump, a vessel, a heat exchanger, or a length of straight pipe; nor could the person coordinate the efforts of a small team or run a simple project. I don't know about you, but I'd have a lot of heartburn with finding myself in a position of inferiority and subservience to such an individual as a result of the creation of a "tiered licensing based on academic credentials" system. But, me with my lowly BSc and, apparently in the eyes of some (presumably, those holding advanced degrees), worthless, inconsequential and irrelevant thirty years of experience in doing all of those (and countless other) things, am quite prepared to humbly step aside and concede in favour of letting only those who actually have enough academic brains to do stuff, do stuff - if that's what the world wants. In a way, I'd even suggest that it might be a good thing: there wouldn't be a "glut" or oversupply of engineers and, of the few remaining who would then be deemed worthy under the new system, perhaps engineering could be restored to the state of the profession that it once was, and "engineers" could get on with the challenge of advancing science and applied science towards the betterment of mankind, rather than running around like a mob of misdirected nerds sheepishly accepting the governance of the business-focused MBA's who perpetually hold dominion above them.

Here's a thought. Let's suggest, for the sake of argument, that the dilution of talent in engineering is not the result of lowering the academic standards or the result of bad universities. Instead, let's suggest that it is the result of creating a global market that is profit-driven as opposed to technology-driven, and that this market allows just about anyone to do what we call "engineering" if they want to do it. Those in Alberta might remember the "Universality" initiatives 15-20 years ago that encouraged virtually anyone on the planet with anything higher than a high school diploma to have a crack at "engineering"; heck, we even re-invented (under pressure of nagging from a governing body of trade-school-educated technologists) a system that offered these masses avenues towards limited scopes of practice. Well, folks, what an absolute croc that was. All we did was open our borders to anyone in the world at a time where being more protectionist was likely more appropriate, and, far worse than that (acknowledging that there is, indeed, a pool of extremely talented engineers globally if you tap into the right places in that pool), even if the discussion is confined to our own domestic talent base, we laid a bunch of eggs in a small pond and carefully nurtured multiple thousands of tadpoles to develop into the overpopulation of frogs who are now competing for the same place on one lily pad.

Academia has not diluted engineering and eroded the worth of undergraduate degrees. The market has eroded it, simply by redefining "engineering" in such a way that most of what engineers do isn't "engineering" at all. Don't blame the universities or their graduates. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

And the MBAs.

 

[bridgebuster]

I quit ASCE a long time ago and never regretted it. A useless organization. Perhaps they believe that by having a MS degree and an SE younger engineers will be able to understand the wind provisions of ASCE 7.

The OP is correct: Individual choice is the crux of Christian thought. Of course we have to make the right choices.

 

[beej67]

The OP is correct: Individual choice is the crux of Christian thought.

..meh, that really depends on where exactly you fall in the hierarchy of post-reformation Christian thought, in regards to faith.v.works and predestination.

But that's definitely a different topic.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[Longinthetooth]

Way to go, Snorgy.

 

[drawoh]

If people go down this path, it really ought to become an "all or nothing" thing, the way it is for physicians. You either are a Doctor, or you aren't.

...

How much training do physicians actually receive? Is their doctorate degree actually equivalent to a doctorate in some other field?

Apparently, the AMA has acknowledged that an average person going to an average doctor had an even chance of being helped, sometime early in the twentieth century. Medical doctorates go back way, way before that. The degree was the medical profession's way to showing that they were educated enough to provide medical treatment, and that all other practitioners were not.

The OP is writing about civil engineering. Neither of us are civil engineers. I have a three year technologist diploma.

--
JHG

 

[ztengguy]

when are they going to target architects who still stamp drawings including structural drawings?

 

[GregLocock]

'they'? As professionals isn't that your responsibility to initiate investigations?

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[theonlynamenottaken]

My 2 cents...

This "Raise the Bar" initiative is the exact opposite of what should be done. It would only reinforce the problems we already have with engineering higher education. To that end here are the two issues with the U.S. higher education system for engineers:
- we have generalized our bachelor's curriculum in the U.S. to the extent that engineering BS graduates only get somewhere between 1.0 to 2.0 years of actual engineering classes.
- Civil Engineering undergrads have to take or atleast be exposed to Structural, Geotech, Transportation, Environmental and Hydraulics/Hydrology within those 1 - 2 years.

Like others here have said, I got a MS in Structural and easily learned 10x to 20x what I did in undergrad about structural. However, I don't agree with requiring an MS for any license. I don't even agree with requiring a BS for any license. Some people suggested above that ABET accreditation be made tougher for engineering universities. I think it would be more advantageous to go the opposite direction...

- Retain "freedom" by allowing anyone to take any discipline's exam. And I do mean anyone. No degrees required at all. If a person can learn structural, electrical, etc engineering at their local library... more power to them. This would force free market pressure on universities to:

-- actually teach useful knowledge​

-- not force students to take so many non-engineering core courses​

-- divide up engineering curriculum so that course loads match the intended disciplinary route​

(e.g. structural vs environmental vs tranportation, etc)​

- Make the higher level engineering exams difficult. Really difficult. I took the CE exam and almost fell asleep. The SE exam was tougher, but it still wasn't really that big of a challenge.
- Separate exam results from required experience. In other words, one could take and pass the electrical exam with no on-the-job experience (and get jobs with those results), but couldn't actually be licensed until a certain amount of experience was gained and documented. That way young aspiring future engineers don't get stuck in the, "need experience to get a job, can't get experience without a job" loop.

 

[mtu1972]

I am a Civil Engineer with a major in the structures option. As stated earlier, several disciplines in Civil Engineering. Of the 105 Civil's in my class, only 3 of us took the structures option. This meant our option classes in Sr. year were all more advanced structural classes.

After graduating in 1972 I stayed on for a year and a half of graduate courses because of a weak job market. Did not get my masters then as a change to the Universities main-frame screwed up my MSCE project's computer program. Those extra courses always provided me with additional insight into structures that those with a BSCE only did not have.

Also, a lifelong member of ASCE. With all of that I have not been in favor of the Body of Knowledge proposal as it has developed. It's an attempt to limit PE's and maybe enhance our profession by affecting supply and demand - but it is not the way to go about it.

As stated above, mentoring, on-the-job-training, etc. were always considered part of the PE training. It should still be enough. And now with the Continuing Education requirements, there are additional hurdles placed on PE's once they become registered. Those courses could be more pertinent and structured so as to force us to really learn, instead of just going through the motions (i.e. log-in; download PDF document; download quiz; do word search for key phrases; answer multiple-choice questions; submit quiz; and print out certificate).

Finally, I've only lived and worked in MI, MN, and WI so the SE was not required. I can understand with seismic problems, but otherwise our work is not "rocket science". When I took the PE in MN, the afternoon was tailored toward your declared major - in my case Structural. I would hope that if the states I am registered in make this leap, I would be given the opportunity to be grandfathered into the SE.

gjc

 

[DHambley]

My "2 cents" is similar to that of msquared48 and others: The 4 years of apprenticeship between the EIT and the PE exam is very equivalent to a Masters program. First you study (or self-teach) and research how to plan this new project, then you perform the calculations for a project under the guidance of a PE (or Professor), then you guide the building of the project (or build your widget in the school lab), and then you prepare a report for the code office (or prepare a thesis for the University). Those of us in the field for decades have done many equivalent masters programs.

I have worked with brilliant young engineers with a Bachelors. I have also worked with PhD's out of school whom I have had the pleasure to mentor. (actually mentoring young engineers is what the present EIT-to-PE is supposed to be all about.) Yes, the MS and PhD are a little smarter but my opinion: No. I don't think a Masters should be required for a PE. The 4 yr apprenticeship plus the difficult PE exam is enough to weed out incompetent engineers.

gendna2, Thank you for the link to the website. I encourage all engineers to review it. Whether you are pro or con, your opinion is important here instead of that of a bureaucrat.



Darrell Hambley P.E.
SENTEK Engineering, LLC

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Thanks for gendna2's link to the website. I submitted a comment to ASCE on that website which I've quoted below to add to this discussion

I'm writing to express my concern regarding the requirement to have licensed engineers have a masters degree as proposed by the Raise the Bar initiative. In my experience a masters degree does not always correlate to a "better" engineer.

In my opinion, and based on experience, the better way would be specific license or title restrictions based on passing standardized exams. This is similar to how the structure engineering exam is being handled in many states. In these states you either cannot call oneself or practice as a structural engineer without passing the 16-hour SE examination. I fully support this. If practical, it would make sense to have additional title restrictions on other disciplines. Thus, one could be a professional engineer simply by passing the PE and the usual state requirements. However, one could only be titled a chemical engineer if they passed a specific additional examination on the principles of chemical engineering. In this way we simultaneously avoid shutting out much of the engineering profession due to increased requirements while also providing a measurable standard with which engineers and non-engineers alike can judge our professionals in the engineering community.

In addition, the cost for licensure to the engineering community would increase under the Raise the Bar initiative. This puts an unnecessary burden on prospective engineers and may cause many people considering engineering to not get licensed or to seek other careers. I feel this could seriously hurt the engineering community and negate any gain to the community through the proposed action.

In conclusion, I'm concerned that ASCE is proposing that engineers spend more time in school and less in the office. It's been my experience that an engineer learns much more practical skills outside of the classroom. While classroom education is an important and required part of becoming an engineer the real learning begins once the prospective engineer is faced with real world tasks outside of the classroom. The sooner we can present prospective engineers with real world applications of their knowledge and skills the better they will be prepared for becoming an engineer.

Thus, regarding advancing the engineering community, I feel that requiring a licensed engineer to hold a masters is well-intentioned conceptual step in providing a higher standard of engineers, which I agree is required, but it is an inefficient and un-standardized approach with less practical value for the engineer and the engineering community than other approaches. I encourage ASCE to modify the Raise the Bar initiative goals as I have outlined above to reduce the number of hours an engineer spends in the classroom and maximize the number of hours spend in real world applications.

Maine EIT, Civil/Structural.

 

[havesealwilltravel]

The purpose of requiring a Masters Degree, as I see it, is two-fold:
It provides a higher minimum of engineering education.
It raises the entry barrier to a P.E.

I received a Masters Degree in Civil Engineering with a Structural emphasis. An undergraduate degree in Civil covers a pretty wide spectrum of subjects and the difference between “specialties” is only a few courses.

The Masters Degree did provide significantly more knowledge about Structural Engineering. I also agree with the people who promote experience as the best teacher. I was fortunate that early in my career I worked for great engineering companies and had highly experienced bosses (They were ALL P.E.s). But that was then; this is now.

I think “raising the bar” is rather pointless. A P.E. is NOT highly respected. It certainly is not necessary to work as an engineer. It is not even needed to be engineering management.

I recently worked at a company where the Manager of Structural Engineering and the Director of Engineering were NOT P.E.s. They did not have much respect for P.E.s, obviously, and felt they only had to have a few on staff who would stamp anything they wanted them to. Most P.E.s were terrified to refuse to stamp anything.

Virtually all states have very broad definitions of what is considered "engineering" and requiring a PE. Most state laws say something along the lines of "you can't advertise yourself as an engineer or perform engineering work without a license except for work done for your employer as the end user".

The business lobby is much more powerful than the NSPE. There are very few cases of a state going after someone for practicing engineering or calling themselves an engineer while not having a PE.

“Raising the bar” will only slightly reduce the number of P.E.s and increase the number of people practicing engineering without a license.

 

[SNORGY]

The other thing people have to think about is, how retroactive is the ASCE prepared to make it? Are PEs without Masters Degrees going to be stripped of their titles and their livelihood? When they are prepared to do THAT, then - and only then - should any such initiative be taken seriously.

Yeah...good luck with that.

 

[jdgengineer]

I'd be nearly certain that they would not apply any of these provisions retroactively.
In California for instance, engineers that were licensed before January 1, 1982 are legally allowed to practice all aspects of land surveying.
I suspect any changes would only effect future licenses.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I think they even mention specifically on the website that this would not be retroactive.

Maine EIT, Civil/Structural.

 

[cjccmc]

Well hang it all! I scrolled thru most of the posts and still cant find the answer.

What do you call the dumbest, most useless person to graduate from medical school?

 

[KENAT]

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[drawoh]

Well hang it all! I scrolled thru most of the posts and still cant find the answer.

What do you call the dumbest, most useless person to graduate from medical school?

It is an old joke I assumed people were familiar with. You address them as Doctor.

--
JHG

 

[mendinho]

I am from out of the US but I absolutely agree with the opposition to the ASCE initiative. Of course, it is all about putting money in the pockets of the universities.

I am a civil engineer, I got an MSc, I am a chartered engineer and I can assure that no master can be a substitute for relevant practical experience in civil engineering. More academic education and more difficult exams cannot guarantee a good civil engineer. If a bachelor in civil engineering is not ok, the problem could be that the BSc/BEng are not well designed and employers are training graduates as CAE monkeys not proper civil engineers.

Regarding the porposed divorce of structural engineering and civil engineering, well, I have been moving between fluids and structures projects and, honestly, I feel helpful both understanding non-structural things in structural engineering projects and understanding structural issues in many non-structural engineering endeavours.

http://notonlybridges.blogspot.com

 

[iceworm]

I'm an electrical, BS in 1973, PE in 1990. I've spent very little of my carreer in a design office - literally like 6 months total in forty years. And I spent a bunch of time pulling wire, running conduit, making up connections, troubleshootng recalcitrant equipment. Definitely a field dog. And I have an opinion:

I have no animosity toward design engineers. Without them I'd have made a lot less money. Someone has to take their designs and build something that will actually work.

I am always amazed how often the equipment is laid out on the drawings to get the best fit and look on the paper.

I have been extremely fortunate in that I've never had to work a job with faceless hordes of union workers coupled with innumerable layers of bureacracy.

In my opinion:
Mediochre design and good crews - the job will come out okay.
Good design and poor crews - the job is screwed..
And this is provided the owners will pay for quality material

Paraphrase of actual conversation:
(High level manager) What the hell is wrong? Get down there and get this working.
(Me) The equipment is akin to chicken shit and you want me to make soup. Okay, I'm on it - You get the first bowl.
Amazingly the the conversation went down hill after that

MS degree? I don't see how it matters. The current state regulations are (paraphrased):
acredited college 4 year degree
4 years experience, including 24 months responsible charge
Pass EIT (I think it is called an FE now) pass the PE exam and one can now charge for "product of engineering.
This hasn't changed in the last 40 years (or so). And we built a lot of stuff.

The greatest generation didn't like us baby boomers much. And I hear the BB generation bad mouthing the Next Generation. They will do fine - and it won't take an MS degree to do the bulk of it.

If you made it this far - thank you for listening to my rambling

ice


Harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction