Becoming an engineer with no degree?

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Yawn. Kids these days. Yes, the technology has changed, but the practicalities and bureaucracies have not.

When I first got into ham radio, a half dozen guys who were interested would gather together in basements and garages to build ham radio satellites. One of those creations is still functioning today, decades after it was first launched (OSCAR 7). The technical challenge of building to a clean sheet of paper is interesting and instructive. However, it is trivial, especially when dealing with something that is basically a one-of creation. More to the point, they didn't have professors telling them how it should be built. They just did it using the technical papers published from the earliest spacecraft experience, their own educated guesses, and practical know-how.

I had many mentors in my ham radio experience. Most hams these days are happy just to know how to assemble a station. I went beyond that. I had experience working in a two-way radio repair shop. I had help designing microwave radios, spread spectrum systems (long before the IEEE 802.11 standards), packet radio, and so on. I did this in 1980 and 1981 as a junior and a senior in high school. I built a crystal phase-locked 10.250 GHz transceiver. I had an early packet radio system built around the W0RLI Terminal Node Controller. I studied electronic warfare systems in my summer internship at Naval Research Lab. I studied and constructed experiments in audio compandering, narrow band integration of slow CW signals, early micro-processor systems, and many other things. By the time I got to college, I'd already seen and done many times more than most people would ever get in their entire college experience.

Yes, some of the finer points of semiconductor physics were interesting. The Fluid dynamics class was interesting too. However, the math was mostly stuff I'd already seen in another form. The signals class would have been much more interesting if the instructor were worth anything. Thankfully I had a lot of practical intuition from my earlier experience to throw at that class that got me through it.

However, today, when designing half a dozen chemical feed systems for a large water treatment plant that must be reliable, economical, intrinsically safe, secure from cyber attack, coordinated with concurrent projects, integrated into existing control systems, and built on existing infrastructure --that's a completely different issue. In many ways it is far more difficult than putting a satellite in space.

By the way, that's a small project. Don't get me started on what larger ones are like. The technical part is often the easiest and simplest aspect to all this. It's the other stuff that tends to drive everyone nuts. THAT is why it takes so long to bring a graduate up to speed.

Those of you who think that Engineering is all technical are living in a dream world. If it were just technical schools might not be so far up the back side of the power curve. It's the social and decision making processes that are most daunting. I have yet to find a school that can teach those things.

 

[clope023]

Yawn. Kids these days. Yes, the technology has changed, but the practicalities and bureaucracies have not.

When I first got into ham radio, a half dozen guys who were interested would gather together in basements and garages to build ham radio satellites. One of those creations is still functioning today, decades after it was first launched (OSCAR 7). The technical challenge of building to a clean sheet of paper is interesting and instructive. However, it is trivial, especially when dealing with something that is basically a one-of creation. More to the point, they didn't have professors telling them how it should be built. They just did it using the technical papers published from the earliest spacecraft experience, their own educated guesses, and practical know-how.

I had many mentors in my ham radio experience. Most hams these days are happy just to know how to assemble a station. I went beyond that. I had experience working in a two-way radio repair shop. I had help designing microwave radios, spread spectrum systems (long before the IEEE 802.11 standards), packet radio, and so on. I did this in 1980 and 1981 as a junior and a senior in high school. I built a crystal phase-locked 10.250 GHz transceiver. I had an early packet radio system built around the W0RLI Terminal Node Controller. I studied electronic warfare systems in my summer internship at Naval Research Lab. I studied and constructed experiments in audio compandering, narrow band integration of slow CW signals, early micro-processor systems, and many other things. By the time I got to college, I'd already seen and done many times more than most people would ever get in their entire college experience.

Yes, some of the finer points of semiconductor physics were interesting. The Fluid dynamics class was interesting too. However, the math was mostly stuff I'd already seen in another form. The signals class would have been much more interesting if the instructor were worth anything. Thankfully I had a lot of practical intuition from my earlier experience to throw at that class that got me through it.

However, today, when designing half a dozen chemical feed systems for a large water treatment plant that must be reliable, economical, intrinsically safe, secure from cyber attack, coordinated with concurrent projects, integrated into existing control systems, and built on existing infrastructure --that's a completely different issue. In many ways it is far more difficult than putting a satellite in space.

By the way, that's a small project. Don't get me started on what larger ones are like. The technical part is often the easiest and simplest aspect to all this. It's the other stuff that tends to drive everyone nuts. THAT is why it takes so long to bring a graduate up to speed.

Those of you who think that Engineering is all technical are living in a dream world. If it were just technical schools might not be so far up the back side of the power curve. It's the social and decision making processes that are most daunting. I have yet to find a school that can teach those things.

Yawn, jaded old men these days. I know Engineering isn't all technical, I work at a national lab and am aware of the bureaucracy that comes with funding, vendor and collaborator politics which holding back projects that'd otherwise be relatively simple to implement. There's an informal fallacy called moving the goal posts, where you basically said nothing practical is done in colleges, than I gave you an example of a practical project done in an academic setting and you're basically saying it doesn't count because you did the same thing outside of an academic setting. Clearly you didn't just play with equipment; but most people, regardless of prior interest or not, would only get the opportunity to come close to accumulating your (impressive) breadth of experience in a college setting where the departments have the resources and labs for research opportunities or connections to outside internships. Especially if a student became interested in engineering later in life and didn't have experiences like yours. I know fairly well that lots of people graduate with the word engineering in their degree's name who are by no means qualified to do engineering work of any sort, that definitely needs to be fixed, but that doesn't diminish the usefulness of a university engineering education as a whole.

 

[rude man]

So, I don't have a degree, but I was curious if companies would hire me as a process engineer.

I understand calculus, diff. Eq, probability theory, statistics, and PDEs. I love thermodynamics, microbiology, immunology, as well as chemistry (above organic).

I guess the problem for me is getting past the HR. They usually just think I'm lying on my resume. Is it possible to just get the FE exam passed in any state without working as a tech for several years?

This was not uncommon 50 years ago but since then large companies especially will probably not hire you as an engineer without a 4 yr. degree. Why not just get one? Accelerated programs exist; you should beble to complete an accredited one within 2 - 2 1/2 yrs.

 

[Vanadium 50]

One learns a lot of engineering on the job. One learns a lot of the practice of medicine on the job as well, Nonetheless, we insist that our physicians have a medical degree. I don't think it's crazy to apply the same requirement to engineers.

 

[TyPie]

This was not uncommon 50 years ago but since then large companies especially will probably not hire you as an engineer without a 4 yr. degree. Why not just get one? Accelerated programs exist; you should beble to complete an accredited one within 2 - 2 1/2 yrs.

I thought the accelerated ones were kind of jokes. Like where they promise to teach you quantum and fluid mechanics in one month to become an engineer.

One learns a lot of engineering on the job. One learns a lot of the practice of medicine on the job as well, Nonetheless, we insist that our physicians have a medical degree. I don't think it's crazy to apply the same requirement to engineers.

As a scientist yourself, if you strongly believed that some one was going to die without immediate help, would you not attempt to help them? There are paramedics that won't take a stretcher on the green at a golf course, because it's against the rules. Are you really no different from those paramedics? Do you not know how to perform a simple tracheotomy? Do you atleast know enough to attempt CPR? Are you CPR certified?

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

There's an informal fallacy called moving the goal posts, where you basically said nothing practical is done in colleges, than I gave you an example of a practical project done in an academic setting and you're basically saying it doesn't count because you did the same thing outside of an academic setting. Clearly you didn't just play with equipment; but most people, regardless of prior interest or not, would only get the opportunity to come close to accumulating your (impressive) breadth of experience in a college setting where the departments have the resources and labs for research opportunities or connections to outside internships. Especially if a student became interested in engineering later in life and didn't have experiences like yours. I know fairly well that lots of people graduate with the word engineering in their degree's name who are by no means qualified to do engineering work of any sort, that definitely needs to be fixed, but that doesn't diminish the usefulness of a university engineering education as a whole.

You have it backwards. Could one learn at least some of the technical aspects of Engineering in a school? I suppose it is possible even though the institution is stacked against it. My point is that I have found many opportunities outside that setting that worked better. One should not need to pay enormous sums of money to be institutionalized for the purpose of "learning" something. That is what infuriates me. I think a lot of what passes for a formal education is a damned bureaucrat driven Ponzi scheme. Some day I expect people will look at it and ask whether this is really working as effectively and economically as it should. I think we both know what the answer to that question would be.

When it comes to practical applications, it is most instructive to start from a bottoms-up approach. I've seen both top-down and bottoms-up in real life. I have seen a lot more success from evolutionary bottoms-up projects than revolutionary top-down projects. Unfortunately, schools teach the latter, while what is needed far more frequently is the former. The top-down approach works best when there is experience from what was done before and where things need to improve. In other words, top-down approaches work best later in a career, not straight out of college.

My other point was that we are teaching on the job anyway. We regularly train and update our skills. The organizations that don't keep pace are doomed to fail. The additional overhead of bringing a high school graduate into the fold to teach the more basic technical things is quite minimal. In fact, a refresher for regular staff might be a good thing. During that time, the student learns and applies those concepts right away to reinforce them. Those who are capable of making the most use of that education will find ways to move up through the organization. Organizations that can afford to offer the best opportunities will have better employee retention, loyalty, and productivity than those that can not.

Instead what actually exists today is an HR-driven pigeon-holing process that prevents upward mobility. Looking at educational institutions to remedy that situation is like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The real problem are policies incapable of reflecting what a person has done, and can do, not the formal education.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I actually do know CPR, although I do not hold a certification in it.

But in medicine seconds count. I know of no situation where there was engineering to be done, and it had to happen before one could locate an actual engineer.

 

[TyPie]

You have it backwards. Could one learn at least some of the technical aspects of Engineering in a school? I suppose it is possible even though the institution is stacked against it. My point is that I have found many opportunities outside that setting that worked better. One should not need to pay enormous sums of money to be institutionalized for the purpose of "learning" something. That is what infuriates me. I think a lot of what passes for a formal education is a damned bureaucrat driven Ponzi scheme. Some day I expect people will look at it and ask whether this is really working as effectively and economically as it should. I think we both know what the answer to that question would be.

When it comes to practical applications, it is most instructive to start from a bottoms-up approach. I've seen both top-down and bottoms-up in real life. I have seen a lot more success from evolutionary bottoms-up projects than revolutionary top-down projects. Unfortunately, schools teach the latter, while what is needed far more frequently is the former. The top-down approach works best when there is experience from what was done before and where things need to improve. In other words, top-down approaches work best later in a career, not straight out of college.

My other point was that we are teaching on the job anyway. We regularly train and update our skills. The organizations that don't keep pace are doomed to fail. The additional overhead of bringing a high school graduate into the fold to teach the more basic technical things is quite minimal. In fact, a refresher for regular staff might be a good thing. During that time, the student learns and applies those concepts right away to reinforce them. Those who are capable of making the most use of that education will find ways to move up through the organization. Organizations that can afford to offer the best opportunities will have better employee retention, loyalty, and productivity than those that can not.

Instead what actually exists today is an HR-driven pigeon-holing process that prevents upward mobility. Looking at educational institutions to remedy that situation is like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The real problem are policies incapable of reflecting what a person has done, and can do, not the formal education.

Seems like if people had to pay some crazy amount of money to take a test, then it would bring up the importance of your education. Too many people believe that their degree means they have a better education than everyone.

Yawn. Kids these days. Yes, the technology has changed, but the practicalities and bureaucracies have not.

When I first got into ham radio, a half dozen guys who were interested would gather together in basements and garages to build ham radio satellites. One of those creations is still functioning today, decades after it was first launched (OSCAR 7). The technical challenge of building to a clean sheet of paper is interesting and instructive. However, it is trivial, especially when dealing with something that is basically a one-of creation. More to the point, they didn't have professors telling them how it should be built. They just did it using the technical papers published from the earliest spacecraft experience, their own educated guesses, and practical know-how.

I had many mentors in my ham radio experience. Most hams these days are happy just to know how to assemble a station. I went beyond that. I had experience working in a two-way radio repair shop. I had help designing microwave radios, spread spectrum systems (long before the IEEE 802.11 standards), packet radio, and so on. I did this in 1980 and 1981 as a junior and a senior in high school. I built a crystal phase-locked 10.250 GHz transceiver. I had an early packet radio system built around the W0RLI Terminal Node Controller. I studied electronic warfare systems in my summer internship at Naval Research Lab. I studied and constructed experiments in audio compandering, narrow band integration of slow CW signals, early micro-processor systems, and many other things. By the time I got to college, I'd already seen and done many times more than most people would ever get in their entire college experience.

Yes, some of the finer points of semiconductor physics were interesting. The Fluid dynamics class was interesting too. However, the math was mostly stuff I'd already seen in another form. The signals class would have been much more interesting if the instructor were worth anything. Thankfully I had a lot of practical intuition from my earlier experience to throw at that class that got me through it.

However, today, when designing half a dozen chemical feed systems for a large water treatment plant that must be reliable, economical, intrinsically safe, secure from cyber attack, coordinated with concurrent projects, integrated into existing control systems, and built on existing infrastructure --that's a completely different issue. In many ways it is far more difficult than putting a satellite in space.

By the way, that's a small project. Don't get me started on what larger ones are like. The technical part is often the easiest and simplest aspect to all this. It's the other stuff that tends to drive everyone nuts. THAT is why it takes so long to bring a graduate up to speed.

Those of you who think that Engineering is all technical are living in a dream world. If it were just technical schools might not be so far up the back side of the power curve. It's the social and decision making processes that are most daunting. I have yet to find a school that can teach those things.

People think water treatment engineers are no better than waste management engineers. People also think that small scale chemistry works exactly like scaled up chemistry, but they don't take into account all the different fluid properties. One of the most impressive things I've seen would be California's massive water treatment plant and Andritz' in Austria. If i remember right, they produce 50% of austria's power by just 1 hydroplant. I don't think satellites as he was saying is more impressive than this. http://www.andritz.com/hydro.htm

 

[TyPie]

I actually do know CPR, although I do not hold a certification in it.

But in medicine seconds count. I know of no situation where there was engineering to be done, and it had to happen before one could locate an actual engineer.

So you wouldn't trust yourself doing CPR, because you don't have a degree stating that you can do it? You don't think heat loss is important to watch out for if some one gets a big cut? You can probably come up with numerous ideas about how to help some one off basic physics...

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

I know of no situation where there was engineering to be done, and it had to happen before one could locate an actual engineer.

I wish I could say the same thing. Try working on a construction site where the existing infrastructure doesn't line up with what the plans depicted. Time is BIG money in those situations and it often leads to some really unfortunate decisions.

 

[StatGuy2000]

You have it backwards. Could one learn at least some of the technical aspects of Engineering in a school? I suppose it is possible even though the institution is stacked against it. My point is that I have found many opportunities outside that setting that worked better. One should not need to pay enormous sums of money to be institutionalized for the purpose of "learning" something. That is what infuriates me. I think a lot of what passes for a formal education is a damned bureaucrat driven Ponzi scheme. Some day I expect people will look at it and ask whether this is really working as effectively and economically as it should. I think we both know what the answer to that question would be.

When it comes to practical applications, it is most instructive to start from a bottoms-up approach. I've seen both top-down and bottoms-up in real life. I have seen a lot more success from evolutionary bottoms-up projects than revolutionary top-down projects. Unfortunately, schools teach the latter, while what is needed far more frequently is the former. The top-down approach works best when there is experience from what was done before and where things need to improve. In other words, top-down approaches work best later in a career, not straight out of college.

My other point was that we are teaching on the job anyway. We regularly train and update our skills. The organizations that don't keep pace are doomed to fail. The additional overhead of bringing a high school graduate into the fold to teach the more basic technical things is quite minimal. In fact, a refresher for regular staff might be a good thing. During that time, the student learns and applies those concepts right away to reinforce them. Those who are capable of making the most use of that education will find ways to move up through the organization. Organizations that can afford to offer the best opportunities will have better employee retention, loyalty, and productivity than those that can not.

Instead what actually exists today is an HR-driven pigeon-holing process that prevents upward mobility. Looking at educational institutions to remedy that situation is like putting a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. The real problem are policies incapable of reflecting what a person has done, and can do, not the formal education.

Jake, what you are talking about is ensuring how engineers who are just starting out can best be trained to become most effective in whatever organization they are working with, but that's not what clope23 and I are talking about. What you do not address is how to educate someone who wants to be an engineer to become an engineer to begin with.

At the risk of being simplistic, engineering is first and foremost the application of scientific knowledge to solve practical, real-world problems (as opposed to simply building things in your backyard like the ham radio). How can anyone in their right mind claim to be an engineer if they do not have some education in at least certain aspects of science, which is precisely what is taught in engineering curricula the world over?

You spend considerable breath bashing the engineering curriculum as being insufficient to train engineers (you routinely refer to engineering graduates as "fools" and "idiots"). Well then, in an ideal world, how would you train a high-school graduate to be come an engineer? By apprenticeship? Should they forget about learning math, physics or other aspects of "theory" that you so routinely scorn?

Furthermore, you routinely state that an engineering education does not prepare graduates for dealing with bureaucracies. Of course it doesn't! No educational program anywhere in the world prepares students for this. We live in the real world; that's not the purpose of school and it never will be.

It seems to me that you are advocating for engineering training that never existed and will likely never exist.

 

[tyjae]

This thread slowly dissolved into bashing newer engineers with degrees. If you love engineering why not major in it? . "Engineering" is not a one size fits all type of deal. There are so many nuances to a job and you're not even past a prerequisite phase.

 

[TyPie]

This thread slowly dissolved into bashing newer engineers with degrees. If you love engineering why not major in it? . "Engineering" is not a one size fits all type of deal. There are so many nuances to a job and you're not even past a prerequisite phase.

It was the other way around tbh. Started when some one said ham radios are basic, and school was easy back in those days.

 

[clope023]

It was the other way around tbh. Started when some one said ham radios are basic, and school was easy back in those days.

I said no such thing, this is an actual straw man.

 

[TyPie]

Jake, what you are talking about is ensuring how engineers who are just starting out can best be trained to become most effective in whatever organization they are working with, but that's not what clope23 and I are talking about. What you do not address is how to educate someone who wants to be an engineer to become an engineer to begin with.

At the risk of being simplistic, engineering is first and foremost the application of scientific knowledge to solve practical, real-world problems (as opposed to simply building things in your backyard like the ham radio). How can anyone in their right mind claim to be an engineer if they do not have some education in at least certain aspects of science, which is precisely what is taught in engineering curricula the world over?

You spend considerable breath bashing the engineering curriculum as being insufficient to train engineers (you routinely refer to engineering graduates as "fools" and "idiots"). Well then, in an ideal world, how would you train a high-school graduate to be come an engineer? By apprenticeship? Should they forget about learning math, physics or other aspects of "theory" that you so routinely scorn?

Furthermore, you routinely state that an engineering education does not prepare graduates for dealing with bureaucracies. Of course it doesn't! No educational program anywhere in the world prepares students for this. We live in the real world; that's not the purpose of school and it never will be.

It seems to me that you are advocating for engineering training that never existed and will likely never exist.

Idk, I've met some pretty weird doctors too. Just look up the trefoil knot bagel.

 

[TyPie]

I said no such thing, this is an actual straw man.

I'm a woman, and not caring to get into politics. No reason to discriminate though.

 

[clope023]

I'm a woman, and not caring to get into politics. No reason to discriminate though.

Straw man is the name of a fallacy whereby someone argues against a point that has not been made.

 

[psparky]

I was trying to make a comparison between the FE and a degree. I have taken the practice exam with the timer and breaks even. I just feel like they've made it too easy. The thing that bothers me is that more than 10% of the people fail the FE, but yet they have an engineering degree. Wouldn't some one who's passed the FE possibly be of greater value than the person who hasn't?

33% of people fail the FE. It is a hard test for sure. The FE to me, basically proves you actually learned something in school. So 66% of the people are passing the first time. The pass rate for 2nd timers or more drops to a 25%. Tough test.

You said you took the practice exam. The morning is typically somewhat difficult, and the afternoon is very difficult.

Are you saying you passed the practice exam in the big yellow book that most of us study from? That afternoon general section is a bear.
If you passed that...that's amazing with no degree.

I took the afternoon electrical option. That afternoon session was way tougher than the electrical PE test.

But like I say, you only need a 50% to pass the FE...the PE you need a 70%.
It was at least that way 3 years ago...the FE test has changed some of its subject matter...so can't be sure of the 50% now.

Also, there is no reason you can't get a job as an "electrical designer" at any engineering firm.
It's just that your pay may max out at 50K...whereas the PE's pay may max out at 100K for example.
You may be good enough to do the same exact work, but your paycheck will be half of the registered professional.

 

[elkement]

... and Andritz' in Austria. If i remember right, they produce 50% of austria's power by just 1 hydroplant. I don't think satellites as he was saying is more impressive than this. http://www.andritz.com/hydro.htm

Sorry for being off-topic and nitpicking but as an Austrian engineer I cannot resist: 60% of Austria's electrical power comes from hydro power plants. There are more than 4.000 plants, 150 of them so-called large plants delivering more than 10 MW rated power. Ten large plants at the Danube produce about 20% of total power, each of them at a power of 130MW to 350MW - but there is no particularly "giant" hydro power plant delivering all the power. Andritz is a manufacturer of turbines, not an operator of a plant.

More on topic: With hindsight I found labs and projects during my degree programs most useful career-wise, and the option to get my hands on rare and expensive equipment. I had the option to work with real-live "customers" such as the operator of a wind farm. When working towards my PhD in applied physics I was "forced" to do also project controlling, project management, negotiating with a bunch of diverse international project partners, including some from industry. All of which I hated back then but which was a useful and absolutely realistic exercise in politics and bureaucracy.

 

[TyPie]

Sorry for being off-topic and nitpicking but as an Austrian engineer I cannot resist: 60% of Austria's electrical power comes from hydro power plants. There are more than 4.000 plants, 150 of them so-called large plants delivering more than 10 MW rated power. Ten large plants at the Danube produce about 20% of total power, each of them at a power of 130MW to 350MW - but there is no particularly "giant" hydro power plant delivering all the power. Andritz is a manufacturer of turbines, not an operator of a plant.

More on topic: With hindsight I found labs and projects during my degree programs most useful career-wise, and the option to get my hands on rare and expensive equipment. I had the option to work with real-live "customers" such as the operator of a wind farm. When working towards my PhD in applied physics I was "forced" to do also project controlling, project management, negotiating with a bunch of diverse international project partners, including some from industry. All of which I hated back then but which was a useful and absolutely realistic exercise in politics and bureaucracy.

Thanks for clearing that up. My german is pretty bad. It's still impressive that 60% of the power comes from hydroplants. What's the price of gas there? In some parts of the US, gas is just $1.99.

 

[TyPie]

33% of people fail the FE. It is a hard test for sure. The FE to me, basically proves you actually learned something in school. So 66% of the people are passing the first time. The pass rate for 2nd timers or more drops to a 25%. Tough test.

You said you took the practice exam. The morning is typically somewhat difficult, and the afternoon is very difficult.

Are you saying you passed the practice exam in the big yellow book that most of us study from? That afternoon general section is a bear.
If you passed that...that's amazing with no degree.

I took the afternoon electrical option. That afternoon session was way tougher than the electrical PE test.

But like I say, you only need a 50% to pass the FE...the PE you need a 70%.
It was at least that way 3 years ago...the FE test has changed some of its subject matter...so can't be sure of the 50% now.

Also, there is no reason you can't get a job as an "electrical designer" at any engineering firm.
It's just that your pay may max out at 50K...whereas the PE's pay may max out at 100K for example.
You may be good enough to do the same exact work, but your paycheck will be half of the registered professional.

It was the big yellow one. I think I'm just going to take out a huge loan and try to start my own business tbh. I had a job in sales at one time. The manager was like, "I can do calculus, and that's why I'm the manager, I have a business degree." I told him nicely that I could do calculus too, so he Googled a problem with solution on some math help site. So I answered his question, and then I asked him a basic one with trig. He couldn't answer it, and goes back to his office to Google it. I saw it in his history, but soon after that day showing him that I could do Calc, I was demoted to being basically QC/janitor.

 

[TyPie]

Sorry for being off-topic and nitpicking but as an Austrian engineer I cannot resist: 60% of Austria's electrical power comes from hydro power plants. There are more than 4.000 plants, 150 of them so-called large plants delivering more than 10 MW rated power. Ten large plants at the Danube produce about 20% of total power, each of them at a power of 130MW to 350MW - but there is no particularly "giant" hydro power plant delivering all the power. Andritz is a manufacturer of turbines, not an operator of a plant.

More on topic: With hindsight I found labs and projects during my degree programs most useful career-wise, and the option to get my hands on rare and expensive equipment. I had the option to work with real-live "customers" such as the operator of a wind farm. When working towards my PhD in applied physics I was "forced" to do also project controlling, project management, negotiating with a bunch of diverse international project partners, including some from industry. All of which I hated back then but which was a useful and absolutely realistic exercise in politics and bureaucracy.

Thanks for clearing that up! What would you say are the best austrian engineering companies. The only big companies I know would be wienerbergen and andritz. I hope I spelled them right. Mein deutsch ist schlecht.

 

[psparky]

Here's one more thought. You would be amazed how many companies don't do background checks or actually call the school you went to to double check your degree.

In other words, try making your resume saying you have an engineering degree. Show your past work histories at a few different made up companies. Send the resume to several companies, you will get interviews. Wow them at the interview and land the job. It's all about your "swagger" in the interview. Might some companies catch you? Sure, but that's the chance you take. All they will do is ask you to leave. What about the company that doesn't know? Go with it. Once you start your first day no one cares about your degree. They just assume you have it.

Obviously, some of you will have morality issues with this, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Just a thought to bypass all the B.S. as you put it.

And the only reason I say this is because you pasted that afternoon session in that yellow book. I couldn't do that back then, and I coudn't do that now...and yes, I obviously have my P.E.

Do not make up a having a PE. You can check your credentials quite easily via the internet. They will bust you instantly on that.

All that being said, I still think going in as an "electrical desinger is your best bet.
Or mechanical designer, or civil designer, or structural designer...etc.

 

[TyPie]

Here's one more thought. You would be amazed how many companies don't do background checks or actually call the school you went to to double check your degree.

In other words, try making your resume saying you have an engineering degree. Show your past work histories at a few different made up companies. Send the resume to several companies, you will get interviews. Wow them at the interview and land the job. It's all about your "swagger" in the interview. Might some companies catch you? Sure, but that's the chance you take. All they will do is ask you to leave. What about the company that doesn't know? Go with it. Once you start your first day no one cares about your degree. They just assume you have it.

Obviously, some of you will have morality issues with this, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Just a thought to bypass all the B.S. as you put it.

And the only reason I say this is because you pasted that afternoon session in that yellow book. I couldn't do that back then, and I coudn't do that now.

Do not make up a having a PE. You can check your credentials quite easily via the internet. They will bust you instantly on that.

Doesn't this happen often? Like some one gets assigned a project and fails the project, but points fingers at everyone else, then gets a new project? Then they get into management after failing twice right and being the best finger pointers.

 

[clope023]

Here's one more thought. You would be amazed how many companies don't do background checks or actually call the school you went to to double check your degree.

In other words, try making your resume saying you have an engineering degree. Show your past work histories at a few different made up companies. Send the resume to several companies, you will get interviews. Wow them at the interview and land the job. It's all about your "swagger" in the interview. Might some companies catch you? Sure, but that's the chance you take. All they will do is ask you to leave. What about the company that doesn't know? Go with it. Once you start your first day no one cares about your degree. They just assume you have it.

Obviously, some of you will have morality issues with this, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Just a thought to bypass all the B.S. as you put it.

Do not make up a PE. You can check your credentials quite easily via the internet.

This is probably the one point where I'd be in agreement with JakeBrodskyPE and it's that just because you can take tests and do well on them doesn't mean that you can actually DO engineering, I think that's true even if we're talking about the PE. What you're suggesting sounds like a good recipe for stuff to blow up in TyPie's face. Might she have the ability to do well based on raw intelligence alone? Maybe. Might she have the equivalent knowledge about pen and paper engineering theory that someone with a degree has? Maybe. However, I don't see evidence that she's built stuff or done lots outside of the classroom projects like lots of engineering undergrads do now, which often times makes or breaks getting the job. Just having a degree doesn't do it anymore, it's become a necessary but not sufficient condition. My degrees got me in the door of HR, my experience doing projects got me my job, I was even asked to do a presentation about my undergrad projects and research during my interview. Swagger isn't going to fix that.

 

[elkement]

Thanks for clearing that up. My german is pretty bad. It's still impressive that 60% of the power comes from hydroplants. What's the price of gas there? In some parts of the US, gas is just $1.99.

For a consumer the price is about 7 Cents (€ Cents) per kWh gas - this is already factoring in the fixed fees (like metering) and the grid operator's costs. Electrical power is about 17 Cents per kWh (again including grid costs and all). Hydro power has a long tradition in Austria (in an Alpine region with suitable rivers) - the large power plants at the Danube were sort of icons of rebuilding the country after WWII.
Responding to your second question about the most important engineering companies - it depends on the definition of engineering... If you mention Wienerberger, I would also add RHI. Steel industry is important - voestalpine. All the companies in the power sector - e.g. Austrian Power Grid, the main transmission grid operator.
Actually I would need to check corporate org charts to check if companies count or still count as Austrian. A part of ABB (Swedish and/or Swiss if I am not mistaken) came from an Austrian company. Then there is Magna founded by Austro-Canadian Frank Stronach. Siemens is German, but also important here.

Wow, that was off-topic again! But it is your thread ;-)

 

[TyPie]

For a consumer the price is about 7 Cents (€ Cents) per kWh gas - this is already factoring in the fixed fees (like metering) and the grid operator's costs. Electrical power is about 17 Cents per kWh (again including grid costs and all). Hydro power has a long tradition in Austria (in an Alpine region with suitable rivers) - the large power plants at the Danube were sort of icons of rebuilding the country after WWII.
Responding to your second question about the most important engineering companies - it depends on the definition of engineering... If you mention Wienerberger, I would also add RHI. Steel industry is important - voestalpine. All the companies in the power sector - e.g. Austrian Power Grid, the main transmission grid operator.
Actually I would need to check corporate org charts to check if companies count or still count as Austrian. A part of ABB (Swedish if I am not mistaken) came from an Austrian company. Then there is Magna founded by Austro-Canadian Frank Stronach. Siemens is German, but also important here.

Wow, that was off-topic again! But it is your thread ;-)

I was just curious! =)
I ask so many questions, because I get excited easily.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Yes, the methods we use for educating and certifying engineers need a lot of improvement.

My point is that apprenticeship is probably a better way to go. I said NOTHING about courses on formal mathematics, science, or any other subject. What I am trying to say is that it should be taught in context of where it will be used.

This does two things: First, learning will be remembered much better when one has actually built something with it. Second, nobody engineers with a completely clean sheet of paper. There are design practices and standards. Schools teach theory, not design practice. Swallowing that much theory all at once does not do an Engineer any favors. It has no context. Remembering that theory in the future is nearly impossible --unless there is experience and practice that gives context and meaning.

Engineering is a very different endeavor than science. Students of science study the theories so that they can devise new experiments to make new discoveries at the edge of what is known. Engineering students study the science, yes, but they also have standards and practices which are an integral part of any design. It is important to learn those standards, how they are applied, and the limits where they are no longer valid, in addition to the theory.

Most of you are concerned with the theory. Theory is great, but Engineering is more than theory. Furthermore, the end user is usually ignorant of many aspects of the design, whereas it is rare for a scientist be ignorant about any aspect of an experiment. For example, one does not think about the mathematics of the catenary function, or the additional stresses on the cables when driving over a suspension bridge; but a scientist who is unaware of every detail in the controls of an experiment is doomed.

The thing we call a formal engineering education is no better than using a hammer designed by scientists to pound a screw designed by engineers into a block of wood that is the actual work product. Teaching science and mathematics is ultimately necessary; but without application and context, few will remember it. We are not getting as much out of the educational system as I think we should. Instead, we have allowed simple-minded people to build a system that forces us to stuff Engineering students full of theory that they may not remember or use for at least a decade or more. And then we sit and wonder why so many of them talk about the courses they took as students as if it were some academic hazing ritual.

I sympathize with TyPie. I would like to see people like her able to break into this field without needing to spend at least four years in an institution that is ill suited to teach what people actually use every day. If you actually think we are well served by this situation, then please keep doing what you're doing. Perhaps another group of people will discover just how messed up this system is and improve on it.

But what do I know. I'm just an engineer who has been through this process, didn't think much of it then, and still doesn't think much of it now, 25 years later. If my teenage children decide to follow in my footsteps, I hope they find a different way. If you disagree, then this is not the rant you're looking for. Move along...

 

[gfd43tg]

@JakeBrodskyPE

I Thought all these classes I'm taking are a hazing ritual. From what I see, engineers have very little creative freedom because there are very strict standards and "tried and true" methods within companies, status quos, etc. I don't expect most my classes to serve me in the future, but I am almost done with my haze at least...

 

[psparky]

A buddy of mine has a graphic art design degree. He was struggling after school as a roofer...making 25K a year when he could work...winters mostly off.

He then decided to slightly lie on his resume and claimed he knew CAD quite well. He was stretching the truth and got his foot in the door.
He then worked his way into being a top electrical designer with a small firm. He then followed me over to a larger firm and was all the sudden making 50K a year.

He went on there for a couple years and was a standout even among the engineers and PE.

He just got hired into a BIM (Revitt) position doing high rise buildings...he is now making 75K per year plus benefits. Not bad for graphic design degree.
And yes, he is very intelligent and very sharp...just got wrong degree.

Point is, sometimes you have to think outside the box, stretch the truth a bit and so forth.

Some people say go ahead and put your past experiences on your resume, but also focus more on what you want to be doing in the future rather than what you are capable now. Some people have said this...so not a fact, just an opinion.

 

[TyPie]

A buddy of mine has a graphic art design degree. He was struggling after school as a roofer...making 25K a year when he could work...winters mostly off.

He then decided to slightly lie on his resume and claimed he knew CAD quite well. He was stretching the truth and got his foot in the door.
He then worked his way into being a top electrical designer with a small firm. He then followed me over to a larger firm and was all the sudden making 50K a year.

He went on there for a couple years and was a standout even among the engineers and PE.

He just got hired into a BIM (Revitt) position doing high rise buildings...he is now making 75K per year plus benefits. Not bad for graphic design degree.
And yes, he is very intelligent and very sharp...just got wrong degree.

Point is, sometimes you have to think outside the box, stretch the truth a bit and so forth.

Some people say go ahead and put your past experiences on your resume, but also focus more on what you want to be doing in the future rather than what you are capable now. Some people have said this...so not a fact, just an opinion.

I know some people go to school to major in something they're bad at too. There was some guy that was really good at science, but ended up majoring in english. People made fun of him for his choice, but when he got his foot in the door, he just couldn't stop writing scientific papers. He pulled in an enormous amount of funding by his papers too...

 

[StatGuy2000]

Yes, the methods we use for educating and certifying engineers need a lot of improvement.

My point is that apprenticeship is probably a better way to go. I said NOTHING about courses on formal mathematics, science, or any other subject. What I am trying to say is that it should be taught in context of where it will be used.

This does two things: First, learning will be remembered much better when one has actually built something with it. Second, nobody engineers with a completely clean sheet of paper. There are design practices and standards. Schools teach theory, not design practice. Swallowing that much theory all at once does not do an Engineer any favors. It has no context. Remembering that theory in the future is nearly impossible --unless there is experience and practice that gives context and meaning.

Engineering is a very different endeavor than science. Students of science study the theories so that they can devise new experiments to make new discoveries at the edge of what is known. Engineering students study the science, yes, but they also have standards and practices which are an integral part of any design. It is important to learn those standards, how they are applied, and the limits where they are no longer valid, in addition to the theory.

Most of you are concerned with the theory. Theory is great, but Engineering is more than theory. Furthermore, the end user is usually ignorant of many aspects of the design, whereas it is rare for a scientist be ignorant about any aspect of an experiment. For example, one does not think about the mathematics of the catenary function, or the additional stresses on the cables when driving over a suspension bridge; but a scientist who is unaware of every detail in the controls of an experiment is doomed.

The thing we call a formal engineering education is no better than using a hammer designed by scientists to pound a screw designed by engineers into a block of wood that is the actual work product. Teaching science and mathematics is ultimately necessary; but without application and context, few will remember it. We are not getting as much out of the educational system as I think we should. Instead, we have allowed simple-minded people to build a system that forces us to stuff Engineering students full of theory that they may not remember or use for at least a decade or more. And then we sit and wonder why so many of them talk about the courses they took as students as if it were some academic hazing ritual.

I sympathize with TyPie. I would like to see people like her able to break into this field without needing to spend at least four years in an institution that is ill suited to teach what people actually use every day. If you actually think we are well served by this situation, then please keep doing what you're doing. Perhaps another group of people will discover just how messed up this system is and improve on it.

But what do I know. I'm just an engineer who has been through this process, didn't think much of it then, and still doesn't think much of it now, 25 years later. If my teenage children decide to follow in my footsteps, I hope they find a different way. If you disagree, then this is not the rant you're looking for. Move along...

Look, I understand that you are frustrated with the system currently in place to educate and train prospective engineers. I get that. But the points you raise beg the following questions: (a) what engineering is, (b) how should engineers be educated/trained, and (c) do any other countries in the world do it differently than those in the US, and do they do it better.

It's pointless to argue about the deficiencies of the training process of any profession without having some concrete (or even general) ideas of how to change it, and whether others have attempted to or thought about changing such training methods.

 

[TyPie]

Look, I understand that you are frustrated with the system currently in place to educate and train prospective engineers. I get that. But the points you raise beg the following questions: (a) what engineering is, (b) how should engineers be educated/trained, and (c) do any other countries in the world do it differently than those in the US, and do they do it better.

It's pointless to argue about the deficiencies of the training process of any profession without having some concrete (or even general) ideas of how to change it, and whether others have attempted to or thought about changing such training methods.

I think we came up with the solution to just lie on your resume.

 

[JakeBrodskyPE]

Look, I understand that you are frustrated with the system currently in place to educate and train prospective engineers. I get that. But the points you raise beg the following questions: (a) what engineering is, (b) how should engineers be educated/trained, and (c) do any other countries in the world do it differently than those in the US, and do they do it better.

It's pointless to argue about the deficiencies of the training process of any profession without having some concrete (or even general) ideas of how to change it, and whether others have attempted to or thought about changing such training methods.

That's a fine question. If you look at what other countries think an engineer is you'll discover that they're not even remotely similar education or experience requirements. In some cases, I have to wonder if they even assign the same meanings to the words. Doing it "better" depends upon what you expect from the outcome.

My point is that I think engineering in North America could be improved significantly by migrating away from a strictly academic approach and toward more apprenticeship. Note that I'm not dismissing academics entirely, but I am trying to avoid Years of class work that students barely use for a decade or more. I would also like to see more technical development taught to students. For example, I learned about RF engineering entirely on my own. I never had any classes on the various polynomials used in filters, Impedance mapping using S-Parameters was not taught either, Noise figure calculations and Dynamic Range measurement techniques were not taught either. The notions of group delay characteristics and linearity were not taught either. Antenna design was only taught in the most rudimentary discussions with no transmission line theory at all. Nobody discussed modulation theory at all. These are things that I had to learn on my own. I wish there had been a mentor to help me understand those things.

These days, I see issues with power grid stability, syncrophaser data analysis, and the like. Nobody teaches the theory behind real time systems used in SCADA and event based reporting problems, either. We all learned how it works by trying stuff and figuring out what works and what doesn't. And by the way, this isn't just me complaining. I was at an academic meeting several years ago and professors were complaining amongst each other that THEY had no idea what people like me were building with or doing in the standards we wrote.

In other words, this learning never stops. Even if they remember every lesson from college, there are still new techniques and new concepts to discover throughout the career. We need to keep a fresh perspective from mentors who teach younger engineers where the state of the art is. So why not start that way from the beginning? My rant is against the sheer incompetence of bureaucracies to properly gauge what a person can or can't do. I am suggesting a system of apprentice oriented study because I feel it is better suited and longer lasting than an entirely academic approach.

As for TyPie's notion of just lying on a resume: Do not lie on your resume. That is a firing offense in most places.

You will get caught eventually. I used to work with a lady who, for nearly 15 years told everyone that she'd graduated from a well known college. Then one day, someone checked. It later turned out that although she had attended that well known college for some time, she never graduated as she had claimed. She was fired not long after that and they used that original lie to keep her out.

 

[homeomorphic]

TyPie, have you thought about programming?

If you can prove your skills by doing really good projects, you don't need a degree. That's why I've been trying to get involved in that. Now, I'm heading more towards algorithm development because I'm the opposite of you, and I think people think I'm overqualified (PhD in pure math). But more programming-oriented stuff is still a back-up plan because I think eventually, I can get good enough projects to break in without a CS degree.

BTW, honesty is the best policy. Or maybe not because I'm one of the most overqualified semi-employed people in the US, and maybe honesty isn't getting me a job, but I stick by it. Sort of. People make it so difficult to get a job, you can't really be 100% honest about everything. Because I'm so honest, my tendency, in a perfect world, would be to lay out the all the pros and cons of hiring me, but what I do is try to just leave out the cons.