Who Owns The Phrase "Engineer"? 9

[mainepepmp]

One of my pet peeves, as an MS-degreed PE working in the IT field, is the growing tendency to name any technical function "engineering", when in most cases (especially in the IT area), it couldn't be any further from what engineering really is, nor do any of the people doing the work have BS degrees, or even a logical, judicious thought process in some cases!

Thus, now that you clearly know where I stand, please answer, who, in your opinion, owns the right to describe either their professional practice or background as being that of an engineer?

 

[DarkHawke]

For each of you engineers that are experts in your field, I applaud you for your years of hard work and dedication. Electrical, Civil, etc, you each do a very specific job. That being said, I move on to why I am posting. You speak of the word and or title engineer as if it were something that you should use with some reverence. On top of being a title, it has been used to describe in some cases, the manufacture of something, or the creation process of something. Each of you I am sure has a degree in of one kind or another. There are some that have specialized, and recieved several certifications above and beyond going to college. I am sure that you are quite familiar with the fact that quite a number of college students graduating today have no clue what they are doing in their alleged field of expertise. Likewise with quite a number of people that just get a few certifications from some book learning they did, most of the time will have no clue. Does this mean that they do not deserve their title? Probably, but they got certified. I have known 4 year degree engineers with less between their ears than my 4 year old son, and I have known 4 year degree engineers as wise as the ages. When a company hires, they do not look at the fact that you stuck the word "Engineer" after your name. You would not hire a civil engineer to do an eletrical engineer's job. You look at their qualifications. Being certified as P. eng. means that you stand behind your work as an engineer. Something far too few people do these days.

Colleges are just barely beginning to catch up in certain circumstances to the computer industry. They are teaching the courses needed for your MCSE or CCE or NSE along with their more traditional computer courses for programming and Information Technology. To have your MCSE does not mean that you are an electrical engineer, and you should not be hired as one. But it would mean that you have taken tests required and passed them in practical application of OS troubleshooting, Networking, SQL server, and a variety of other things. You could not ask a civil engineer to describe a network stack or troubleshoot packet loss in a company's LAN. But you could ask an MCSE. You could not ask an Electrical engineer to set up all the routing needed and plan out the schematics for setting up a LAN or WAN with RAS and VPN capabilities and all IP addresses needed for it, etc, etc. However, depending on the project, the project would require a Telecommunications engineer familiar with fiberoptics, A CCE (Cisco Certified Engineer), If they were using Novel in their infrastructure as well, they would need an NSE (Novel Systems Engineer) for setting up the servers properly. They may even need an MCSE for setting up the exchange servers, and any windows based servers. I have known people to have their MCSE, CCE, NSE, and an engineering degree of their choice.

To have an MCSE means that you are qualified to do a specific set of jobs in a specific field. To give it any more credence than that is the fault of the people touting themselves as such, and the suckers that believed it, instead of doing the research needed to get the correct people. If you feel so threatened as a aeronautics, civil or electrical engineer by someone waving their MCSE then maybe you need to reconsider how qualified you actually are to do your job.

 

[BobPE]

DarkHawke:

I think you are missing the point. MCSE and CCE do not exist in the world of professional engineering. If we engineers want them to exist it's up to us. The problem comes from people using the term engineer. When industries like Microsoft latch on to the term to benefit themselves through the use on the moniker and the detriment of their students, this is wrong, and in some states illegal. We pursue those individuals who use the term engineer and depending on the state they can face stiff fines. I feel this is wrong since the student really had no clue and is using the term because a company wanted to make sure they had the prestiege of engineering associated with their program. Why didn't MS use Dr.? It essence it's the same argument only I suspect Dr's have a much stronger enforcement amongst their ranks.


BobPE