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"?

 

[gendna2]

I read an article debating the SE license in the US in the April issue of Civil Engineering. It was no debate at all, cleverly lop-sided towards the SE license. The funny thing is that at the end of the magazine, there was another article where the Supreme Court told dentists in North Carolina that they can't ban tooth whitening services using their State Board. So I wrote the following to the editor of the magazine, which by the way, I think is a great magazine and meant to be a little funny.

Regarding “Structural Engineering and Licensure”,

Adam Smith wrote in his Wealth of Nations that “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
How fitting that this issue of ASCE has the Supreme Court of the land striking down at least one minor anti-free market move of a state licensing board.

I applaud that decision, and think we need more like that. To give you a corollary, civilians are ultimately in charge of the military; elected civilians. So yes, politicians, that dirty P word, should ultimately be in charge of engineers too. We are not the deciders in chief, we just set up the risk decision matrix, and elected officials make the risk decisions. Of course, if we skew the matrix, and shout that the sky is falling because “we’re using computer programs we can’t understand” and a “parking garage collapsed”, then we’ll skew the decision as well.

There are many good reasons why politicians should be in charge of licensing. Adam Smith knew that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Engineers don’t get together and think about how to squeeze money out of the taxpayer, but if the types of engineers who are PhDs, heads of companies, etc…call it the 1% of engineers, made the laws, we’d be taking 32 hour exams and needing a PhD to design a skyscraper. Among the myriad of other regulations that businesses must bear in this country, this would certainly count as a “contrivance to raise prices.”

I believe that the “S.E. Debate” article is no debate at all, it is a very biased and skewed article, skewed towards spreading the SE license across the USA. The only organization against the move, NSPE, has each individual concern rebuffed in the article in a matter of fact, we thought about that already, kind of manner. The article basically says, “don’t worry folks, spreading the SE license everywhere won’t be as bad as you think.”

First, be prepared to dismantle ASCE and Civil Engineer magazine in the next 20 to 30 years. Structural Engineers consider themselves SEs first, so you might as well begin by taking out the structural articles from Civil Engineering, since the field is becoming so complex and specialized, that an SE won’t really care what an engineer designing roads and drainage does….they never do it anyway.

Second, be prepared for a Geothechnical License.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicoll_Highway_collapse

The Niccoll Highway Collapse in Singapore killed 4, injured 3, did millions of damage, and was a lot worse than a parking garage collapsing in Florida. If the foundation fails, the retaining wall fails, the tunnel collapses…that’s just as bad as a structural engineer’s failure. Not to mention the practicality of SE licensing bleeding into a project like the Big Dig, who can stamp that one? 50 states will make that decision 50 different ways.

The PE Exam is too easy, right? It’s far too easy for today’s unintelligible computer algorithms, and we deeply care about protecting the public. Next step, Geotechnical License; I’ll be the first to lobby for this one.

For that matter, let’s have a Transportation License too. If the curve is improperly designed, and cars crash, people will die too. How about a Computer Science License for programs that affect the public. If the flight controls fail, or AutoCAD is wrong, we could kill a lot of people.

The above are examples of the obvious false logic behind the SE license, which I strongly hope is brought to a Republican controlled Supreme Court and struck down, nation-wide.

Here is the more pernicious false logic, the one that the average layman would have trouble comprehending. Your article quotes Mr. Hudson, an S.E. advocate who says that he thinks he could have been a true civil engineer in 1982, i.e. practicing in multiple fields, but he can’t anymore because the IBC went from 1.5 inches thick to 2.5 inches, with “larger pages” that reference “a bookshelf of other standards.”

It’s the same people, with no political oversight, that blew up our codes, and now, are clamoring for “raising the bar” and adding the SE. Instead of fixing the root cause of the problem, which are out of control design codes, ASCE advocates for essentially splintering the profession via a 16 hour exam on top of the PE. Maybe we had a happy medium in code writing sometime in the early 90s, but now it is out of control, because the 1% of civil engineers…. sorry, I meant to say structural engineers, control the code writing process.

We built the Hoover Dam, Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, Grand Coulee Dam, Panama Canal, without the large ASCE Minimum Design Load references, the AASHTO LRFD industrial door weight, or an IBC that is racing in size against the AASHTO standard. Of course, we also designed those structures with men who only had a Bachelor’s Degree and a simple PE, if that. Back in those days, they had a free market which accepted slightly more risk, for vastly more freedom. Mistakes happened and will happen, people died, people went to jail, businesses went bankrupt, and guilds, I mean professional societies, outside of highly corrupt states like Illinois, couldn’t lobby for 16 hour exams so we can do the “right thing” and ensure that for any structure, we need a MS, PE, SE, GE to design the thing.

Lest we forget that young engineers today have to take highly competitive SATs (that’s the SAT I and also two to three SAT IIs = 6HRs) to get into college, where they’re competing against foreign students too, then the FE (8HRs), then a GRE (4 HRs) for the masters, then a PE(8HRs), and now, to further increase public safety, the SE(16HRs). I’ll make sure to let kids know about that when they’re considering STEM versus finance or law.

She may be having fun building a popsicle stick bridge, but we’ll see what Suzy thinks when I show her a real life AASHTO LRFD design guide and take 34 hours of examinations to build the real bridge. Oh, this is on top of the exams in engineering school, and her AP Exams, forgot those.

Maybe she’ll ask if she can use the structurally sound AASHTO design guide to physically bridge the gap instead of a popsicle stick bridge, after all, there’s a few SEs and PHds that worked on that design guide…

Hope you found the sarcasm funny,
But I do believe the SE is another step in the wrong direction for civil engineering,
#########

P.S. I wouldn’t use the great state of Illinois as an example of anything, including the SE license. If you dig a little into the true origin of the SE license in Illinois, it’s got nothing to do with protecting the public; it was just a turf war, the conspiratorial stuff Adam Smith talked about.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

As someone who supports the SE license I"m going to star your post. It's well thought out and well reasoned. Enjoyed reading it.

I'll agree on many points, as well. I agree with these for sure:

It was no debate at all, cleverly lop-sided towards the SE license.

Instead of fixing the root cause of the problem, which are out of control design codes, ASCE advocates for essentially splintering the profession via a 16 hour exam on top of the PE.

I’ll make sure to let kids know about that when they’re considering STEM versus finance or law.

Maine Professional and Structural Engineer.

http://www.fepc.us

 

[Panther140]

My signature says it all.

If you dont see how it fits this, hopefully your whool is more valuable to the shepherd than your meat is

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[Panther140]

You Civil Engineers have an insider's perspective and the most at stake here. If you want new blood to come into the talent pool, you better straighten this mess out asap. When I was in school, I got a little taste of how much of a death grip government has on all facets of civil engineering. It drove me away from it pretty quickly. I am glad that I caught on FAST, because my end goal for my formal education was to get a BS in civil engineering and then get a PE. By the time I got there, id probably have to get a PHD just to be on a survey crew!!

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[IRstuff]

"By the time I got there, id probably have to get a PHD just to be on a survey crew!!"

We'll have to see how that goes, but certainly for some other professions, the exact opposite is true. I know PEs often lament how much better off doctors are in the US, but the reality is quite different. Engineers complain about Rug and Sanitation "Doctors," but medical doctors are now having to contend with splitting their work load with nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants, who are getting paid significantly less than the doctors. So, the medical associations have been fighting this trend, but have been on the losing end, because the hospitals and insurance companies have more money and want see costs go down. Oh, and just recently, pharmacists have been lobbying to write prescriptions, further eroding the MD's customer base, but that might be a good thing, since it's likely that those patients won't have the fee for service insurance.

I would imagine that something similar is going to happen with this situation, but I'm just not certain where all the money resides, since large construction companies who you'd think have the money have both engineering and construction, so they may have an internal conflict of interest.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529


Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
There is a homework forum hosted by engineering.com:

http://www.engineering.com/AskForum/aff/32.aspx

 

[JNieman]

@Panther140,

No offense, but you were still in school as of last October at least. Or at least, you were starting threads here saying you're an Engineering Tech student this past October.

I appreciate a variety of insights and perspectives from a large variety of backgrounds and experiences but I think the topic is a keenly professional one. I find it odd that you're insinuating the Stalinesque power of a formal education but you're in a 2 year civil engineering tech program that won't end in a BSc.

I don't think I understand what your point is.

_________________________________________
NX8.0, Solidworks 2014, AutoCAD, Enovia V5

 

[Panther140]

Jnieman -- End goal for my education was to get a BS in civil engineering because I could then get a PE. I was trying to get out of the formal education system as fast as possible, get a job making a living wage, gain relevant experience, and then return to school when my motivation to get a BS overcomes my strong desire to not be in school.

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[MacGruber22]

The thought of states/commonwealths implementing "raise the bar" makes me sad for the middle class (my assumption of most structural engineers). The money spent on a masters degree could handily be absorbed into undergraduate degrees (as others have mentioned) when the extraneous courses are removed and substituted for traditional graduate-level engineer courses.

Some economic ranting:
If MS requirements are implemented, I expect that many families will be faced with postponing home purchasing because they are being required to obtain a masters degree (there goes your down-payment!). The statistics are clear on affordable home purchasing and its positive affects on the economy - conversely, we have all seen what happens when people buy homes who can't sustainably afford to do so. Heaven forbid your spouse has a profession with the same requirements.

Some ranting about expectations:
The 3-tier structural engineering degree system is unnecessary. Provide one 125-credit (plus or minus) structural engineering degree and the option to pursue the heavy philosophical/theoretical PhD. "Raise the bar" on universities filling the heads of engineers with wasteful courses, not the engineer will be undoubtedly will be busting his/her hump to keep up with ever stagnant wages, fee percentages, increasing fast-tracking, all with assurance that we will provide flawless work 100% of the time.

More ranting....
I am sure many on this site have wives or husbands who are public school teachers; they are already under the same pressure as our profession. My wife (English teacher) has been forced into a masters degree, but continues to be paid the same as she did without the masters. Same will occur in the structural engineer profession. Most employers do not value (in terms of money) masters degrees. Why? Because they see no appreciable increase in risk the knowledge obtained from a BS. Everything is so prescriptive anyways!

ASCE = Big $:
ASCE has this topic all wrong. The real and current risk to human life (due to structural failure) is because of lack of maintenance by owners and poor construction due to hurried construction schedules. And if there was a problem with engineering knowledge by practicing engineer, they are taking the easiest way out by imposing the change on individuals. What else can we do but yell and scream about it? Passionately and logically defending yourself is worth a nickle for every real dollar someone else has to shut you up.

A different perspective on my ranting:
Personally, I would push through and finish my masters if this day comes. I do not know how to be anything other than an engineer, and leaving the profession would likely cause more harm to the stability of my family than to oblige the masters degree requirement.

I will end with this "formula".
BS + Quality Experience = BS + MS + Quality Experience


"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[Panther140]

There are ABET accredited 2 year schools where I am at in Wisconsin. Wisconsin also says you can get a PE if you go to an ABET tech school. They are approved by ABET's TAC. So in theory, I could get a PE with a tech degree here, couldn't I?

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[MacGruber22]

Is that a question, Panther40?

http://dsps.wi.gov/Licenses-Permits/Engineer/PElicense

"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[ornerynorsk]

"My signature says it all.

If you dont see how it fits this, hopefully your whool is more valuable to the shepherd than your meat is
"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin "

Panther140, I don't have much of a dog in this fight because I am not a PE, nor will I foreseeably ever be in the position where I am striving to acquire one. However, I'm not sure that I want to live downstream of a dam being built by intellectual Bolsheviks.


It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[Panther140]

Are you implying that formal education and learning are completely codependent? I don't see how you could draw that conclusion with the amount of extremely intellectual people that detest formal education systems. Pretty much any idea that aligns with what you posted above are null and void when posting on the internet, given the history of this invention.

Back on subject:
MacGruber, the part that I am not clear on is the requirements for the FE exam would work in that case. It says that you have to be at least a senior in a BS program to take it.

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[ornerynorsk]

"Are you implying that formal education and learning are completely codependent?"

Not at all. It's all about being able to present your credentials/ability/intelligence in a credible and well accepted format. You could be the smartest guy in the world, but how are you going to convince someone of it? Are they going to take a chance on you if you didn't even have the ambition to attend uni or get the higher education? It's all politics and marketing. And economics, as Weldstan pointed out.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[Panther140]

theonlynamenottaken, you are exactly right on all accounts

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[MacGruber22]

Panther, I don't know. Why don't you contact your licensing board and ask. They are the people you need to satisfy anyways.

"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[Panther140]

"ornerynorsk (Industrial)24 Jun 15 13:16

Not at all. It's all about being able to present your credentials/ability/intelligence in a credible and well accepted format. You could be the smartest guy in the world, but 1-how are you going to convince someone of it? 2-Are they going to take a chance on you if you didn't even have the ambition to attend uni or 2.5-get the higher education? It's all politics and marketing. And 3- economics, as Weldstan pointed out"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Im going to answer the underlined concerns in order below.

1- I took an aptitude test that my employer administered and answered questions that extensively probed my technical knowledge. Also, the smartest guy in the world could probably find an alternative method if he wanted to.

2- The educational content at universities does not align with my ambitions.

2.5- I am getting more and more educated every day at work. The education I am getting is also significantly more useful to my employer and myself than anything a tenured teacher-zilla would be teaching me right now.

3- Economics! I'm glad you brought that up. Lets consider opportunity cost, competition, return on investment, current prospects, and how it relates to my plan before we get to questions like number 2.

"Formal education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." ~ Joseph Stalin

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Interesting to note is that the Maine PE board recently took a stance against Raise the Bar (not by name) and similar initiatives in their newsletter.

Maine Professional and Structural Engineer.

 

[ornerynorsk]

All fine and dandy, what if the employer is a startup, very small organization, etc, and is not qualified to qualify the candidate? This is often the case when younger/smaller organizations begin to push the boundaries of their own expertise, and subsequently seek to employ technically upward.

Panther 140, I do hear where you're coming from. I'm getting very close to retirement, but if I had it to do over again, I would have taken my education to the highest level practicable. Now understand something, I started the hard way, much like you describe. I do not have a degree . . . in anything! I have a tech school certificate, and many, many years of widely varying experience in many different facets of manufacturing, metallurgy, business development, and R&D. I am currently head of an engineering department at a medical device OEM, have been for a decade, but having no credentials, I do not sign off or certify critical matters . . . ever. We have engineers for that. It is exclusively my experience that landed me the position.

When I was fresh out of school, full of piss and vinegar, I talked a local banker into lending me enough to start a machining/fabricating shop. Mind you, I'd had 4 to 5 years work experience in the shop environment by this time, so formulating the business plan and marketing angle wasn't too much of a stretch. Failed spectacularly 13 months into it. Good experience, one learns more from mistakes than successes. In the ensuing decades, I've owned numbers of additional (successful) businesses, and have worked for a dozen or more companies, from a mom-and-pop to a multi-billion dollar telecommunications hardware OEM. My expertise is tool & die, but I have extensive experience in medical device, defense (Mark 45 5 inch Naval gun project), small caliber arms R&D, miniature fluid power, and restaurant/bar ownership, believe it or not. I've done extensive business on 3 continents, including the former Soviet Union.

What's the point of all of this? Had I gone the traditional route of higher education, for which I then had a distaste similar to yours, I would have been retired 10 years ago with a lot more money in the bank, with greater accomplishments under my belt, able to pursue my bucket list of a million interests much more proficiently and well-funded than I currently am able. . . . as the clock continues to tick.

You can absolutely make it the hard way, if you've got the fight and determination to swim against the current, fighting the rapids and dodging the occasional bear, sure it can be done. You mentioned ROI. And you mention that "formal education is a weapon". A person like yourself who is obviously not hesitant about a good challenge can do wonders by "arming" themselves and see a tremendous return on the investment over the course of a lifetime. Not to give advice, just offering a little perspective from someone who has done it the hard way, and not afraid to admit it.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[MacGruber22]

I would like to add by saying times are extremely different than when ornerynorsk and others of that generation crafted their experience. The current pace of engineering revolves around the constant desire to optimize time and money as facilitated by modern computing power. I find it to be even more crucial now than ever before for engineers to have a deep understanding of theory of structures, classical and modern numerical methods (as an example for structural people). Among many other things, so much of our time is spent modeling in software and reviewing output to ensure reasonable results. Engineering technicians and even many engineers (without proper experience) will tend to rely on the software being accurate (because they do not know otherwise). And, until I am dead in my grave, will I ever implicitly trust software to be correct.

My "1984" is a room full of technicians operating software that combines "automated" BIM and engineering analysis...no thank you.

"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."

 

[Triangled]

Agreeing with macgruber...
I find the primary lesson I try to inculcate to my multiple newly minted BS engineering EITs, is, don't trust the little number that the nice computer program said is, "OK".