Should Chartered Engineers Be At Least 40?

Nah, the minimum age should be 60. Down with upstarts--give us old farts a chance!

The width and depth of their experience is more important than the length. I know of retired engineers who had the same five years of experience repeated over and over again. I knew thirty-three-year-olds who started as draftsmen and got their book learning at night school who had fifteen years of varied experience.

p.s. Tornado is being generous.

Type and nature of experiences is more important than age to be competent enough to achieve chartered engineer status.

NOW YOU TELL US?! OMG!

(ga)

The problem is "who is a chartered engineer". Should he know basics of all aspects of engineering like specifying,design,estimating, contracts,installation,testing, commissioning,maintenance,energy saving OR worked in a specific area like surge protection,PFC,project management(installation),design,estimating,maintenance of factory or HV substation,protective relays,HV transmission lines,hospitals etc?. For doctors they call dentist,cardiologist,dietician,optician,renal etc but in engineering there is no clear designation. Another issue is how they evaluate an engineer for charter. Is it by checking a technical report submitted by candidate which could have been written by some one else,or an interview where the panel consists of some one known to candidate or who recommended him?. I want to know how doctors get FRCP,FRCS,MD etc.Whether it is by an exam,interview,recommendation,report?. Even other professionals like accountant,architect,lawyers how do they get professional status?.

As per the U.K Engineering council ,Chartered Engineers are concerned primarily with the progress of technology through innovation, creativity and change. They develop and apply new technologies; promote advanced designs and design methods; introduce new and more efficient production techniques and marketing and construction concepts; and pioneer new engineering services and management methods. They may be involved with the management and direction of high risk and resource intensive projects. Professional judgment is a key feature of their role, allied to the assumption of responsibility for the direction of important tasks, including the profitable management of industrial and commercial enterprises. Professional bodies have formulated guidelines to earn C.Eng status. Medical profession is entirely different from engineering. FRCS ,MRCP are awarded based on exams( Theoretical and practical).

It is an attractive statement. What percentage of C Engineers have done innovative work before getting charter?. Most of the engineers are accepted for technical report writing ( even on a job not done by candidate) and good recommendation by senior engineers. Another aspect is evaluation depends on the nature of population viz 1st world,3rd world etc. If possible cite some innovative work done by some engineers before obtaining charter.

All engineers who passed the exam won't get equal opportunities in training facilities or in employment. One lucky guy will go to a big workplace with many experienced engineers and equipment while another might end up in a small factory far from civilisation. Similarly the education too is different in various parts of the world as in a first world country compared to a third world country. So you can't compare a P.Eng or C.Eng from USA or UK with that in an asian or african country. Although they have same title knowledge and expertise will differ. To avoid this we can create sub divisions in P.Eng/C.Eng like grade 1,grade2,grade3 and so on depending on their level of expertise which is required to work in a given environment which differs greatly on level of civilisation.

The age problem arises because some young engineers about 30yrs old get Charter (Professional status) due to a)being worked under an influential engineer who can give excellent recommendation b)from a particular university where a professor who assess candidates teaches c)racial grounds where one community want to dominate d)belong to a facist racist politically influential organisation e)relative of a very influential politician etc. Without a variety of work experience and maturity(age 40yrs) it is not advisable to get professional status like C.Eng or P.Eng. They should know the value of experienced guys without professional status and be good to them.

Actually it is diffeent for professional engineers. They have to fulfill their work experience/education, and have references to enter the examination. However, they still have to pass the examination. As most State Boards have found in the US, the passing rate on the exam declines as the engineers delay taking the exam. Basic engineering knowledge that is tested (the technical knowledge) declines substantially the longer the engineers delay in taking the exam after graduating from college. Most engineers do very little engineering themselves after only a few years out of college. they have software for complicated analysis, and even then most of the daily stuff is not very complicated and many time just simple qualitative stuff or writing reports (many of which do not require a PE stamp). Only a few engineers do quantitative analysis problems as part of their working routine. On the other hand the examination is mostly about solving engineering problems that can be analyzed quantitatively. So for most PEs taking the eam as soon as possible after their college graduation is the only way to have sufficient recall of engineering to pass the exam, as their working environment doesn't facilitate engineering knowledge, but rather project management, budgeting/estimating, staff management, marketing, and other assorted business practices. This is why I personally believe PEs should be re-examined regularly, people might be surprised how many PEs aren't current on engineering regulations and analysis techniques (or have forgotten them). (Plus the fact that they always claim the exam reflects to mean working knowledge of licensed PEs, but never have sampled the licensed PEs who have been at it a awhile to truly see if that is true.)

Giving a mere P.Eng or C.Eng will be misleading as in any field of engineering there are many sub divisions. It would be more logical and appropriate if Engineers are tagged as per area of specialisation like P.Eng(HV lines),P.Eng(power generation), P.Eng (substations),P.Eng(motors and drives),P.Eng(power quality) etc similar to medical profession where doctors are classified as physicians,surgeons,dietician, dentist, veterniary,cardiologist etc etc. An engineer who has P.Eng or C.Eng should not think that he knows everything or handle any kind of work. A C.Eng told that electromagnetic ballast creates harmonics and asked whether aluminium busbar trunking is cheaper than copper busbar trunking. He was a fellow of IEE(UK)

Actually the PE licensure in the US is for specific fields. In some states the PE licenses are specified in State Law for the practice, such as electrical, mechanical and civil engineers in California. So a PE license is not general, but rather the licensees are allowed only to practice in those areas specific to the field of the licensure as defined by law.

Some fields in California are not so protected, because the actual practices of those such as Chemical engineers are not protected, process design (the systems themselves fall under Mechanical Engineers, and the Supporting structures and foundations under Civil Enginers), and some the practice relating to the industry the engineer would practice in are exempted by law from requirements, such as purely agricultural (non-occupancy) and raw petroleum facilities (no processed materials). These are called title protected, because their is no defined practice that has legal requirements to practice, but the use of the title is restricted. some States operate on the premise that all PEs can practice in any field they feel qualified, no matter the education or experience, and then if they get turned into the State Board they might get reviewed for a potential violation. I would agree that this doesn't make sense, but I know a number of chemical and agricultural engineers who push for this right now especially as the economy is down and they are looking to expand into other opportunities that may be legally restricted against their practice curently.

Dividing into civil,electrical,mechanical etc is misleading because each of these fields have several sub divisions. For instance an engineer specialised in HV transmission lines may not know about protective relays in which he may need special training. Also an engineer specialised in tunnels may not be conversant with high rise buildings.

They had proposed about 10 years ago to attach a letter designation to Civil Engineers to identify their specialty, such as environmental, water resources, structural, geotechnical, general construction. At some point though there is a limit to how fine a subdivision you can make, and still be able to qualify by a standard national testing program. At any rate some of the older PEs had a fit to be grandfathered under essentially a all qualified classification, and the bureaucracy this would have incurred was a little more than current. So the State never proceeded.

As in many spheres of life, experience vs. theory, is, usually, quite different. Chartering is a way of tagging the difference. But, I suspect, that if younger, less experienced, colleagues, want to criticize their elder brethren, a Charter designation, probably wouldn't make much difference. Lack of respect for elders, in general, is usually at the root of such a mentality.

In the USA individual states license them as professional engineers. General requisites are passage of fairly rigorous technical exams and verifiable completion of some sequence of relevant professional experience and formal education. Commonly here it's 4 years experience and a BS degree.

Personally I think that the present day complexity of engineering work and its increasingly interdisciplinary demands suggest that the years of experience should be increased. In no case should calendar age be a criteria for certification.

In the USA the current state of tort law bears heavily on licensing of engineers. Licensing implies professional practice and thereby exposes the individual to civil lawsuit. State laws may or may not by themselves immunize the engineer from lawsuit. Typically an employer offers the engineer employee a sort of insurance coverage in which liability and legal defense costs are covered. But this is only as good as the employer's actual resources. A small company or one in bankruptcy may not be able to act in court on behalf of an engineer employee. The result of this is that many engineers who choose a career working for others rather than "hanging out their own shingle" avoid professional engineer licenses. Generally the cost of self insurance for an engineer in the USA is too much to be considered by an employee engineer unless directly reimbursed by his employer.

Ed Weldon

Actually the degree isn't actually required. It is usually equated to a number of years work experience, e.g. a ABET BS degree isequated to 4 years experience, a Non-ABET engineering degree about 2 years or so, a MS in Enginering is 1 extra year. You can receive a PE license wit no Degree at all, just based on years of work experience in the field at an engineering level under a licensed professionals supervision and passing the EIT exam. Typically this is 6 year work experience (or educational equivalency). You can also receive a PE without the EIT, by working 16 years. so when you here people gripe about the younger PEs, if they are truly equivalently capable and qualified they could easily go test out for the license themselves, and be a PE. Once passed they will nevver have to be requalified or maintain their qualifications near the level they were examined at, and are licensed for life as long as they take a few quick online fluff courses in things like professional insurance procedures (except in California which doesn't require CEUs, which is ok since they are really just a ploy to sell professional crap information).