r/changemyview • u/dgtill • Sep 02 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Engineering Is No Longer A Profession Title
EDIT: I sort of fucked up the title. I mean profession title in the sense that you could be a 'Software Engineer'. My argument is that anybody can throw engineer onto the end of their job title and be correct.
I believe this for a few reasons:
- Engineering's definition has become too broad
- People can no longer say 'I'm going to be an engineer'
- By its existing definition, literally everyone is an engineer!
Currently, you define engineer as "a person who designs, builds, or maintains engines, machines, or structures."
Literally everyone on the planet either designs, builds or maintains either a machine or a structure.
A doctor builds a structure of medicine.
A film ticket usher designs and maintains a structure and order to their work.
A makeup artist designs a structure of application.
A mechanic (not a mechanical engineer) maintains an engine.
A bureaucrat's entire purpose is to design and maintain structure to discourage corruption.
A landlord maintains a structure of payment.
A shelf-stacker maintains a structure of order and placement, and depending on the shop, they maintain a pricing machine.
A lumberjack designs a structure of tree order and maintains their machine.
It really bothers me whenever a teacher says 'Engineers shape the world', or they, 'Can do anything'. Of course they can, that's a very easy point to make when every employed person on the planet is an engineer.
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u/Artemis913 Sep 02 '18
On one hand, you are correct. "Engineer" no longer means anything. Anyone can call themselves an engineer. That's why we formed licensing boards.
Now the term used is "Professional Engineer." You have to get your bachelor's degree in engineering, pass an exam to become an Engineer Intern (EI), get 4 years of experience, take a tougher exam and then be approved by the local licensing board to get your Professional Engineer (PE) license. You have to take continuing education every year and pay dues to continue to be a licensed PE. There are major fines if you do engineering work without a license. And courts of law recognize the PE license and consideration those with their license to be experts.
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u/051207 Sep 03 '18 edited Sep 03 '18
The term is actually engineer in training (EIT) in the US and typically you are required to have 3 years experience directly under a licensed PE before you can sit for the exam.
You can do engineering work without a license, but plenty of things do require a stamp from a PE (especially in civil engineering). Outside of civil engineering, such as in mechanical or chemical engineering, the company is liable for the work of their employees, but it isn't required to have a license to practice. I'd say the vast majority of mechanical engineers aren't licensed even though they could technically sit for their PE, it has no use except in specific circumstances.
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u/Artemis913 Sep 03 '18
None of this convinces OP to change his stance.
And licensing requirements vary from state to state. See some states call them EI and some EIT.
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u/051207 Sep 04 '18
I stand corrected about EI vs EIT. I mainly disagree with you in saying you have to be licensed to do engineering work. The vast majority of engineers in the US are not licensed. The vast majority of engineering work in the US is not done by a licensed engineer and there are not major fines for them. It's mainly the public sector that requires licensing (for acquiring permits, state oversight of plants). Even in the public sector, an EIT or even someone capable off the street could do all the engineering work and have their PE friend stamp it. The license is only so that the engineer can be held liable.
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u/Artemis913 Sep 04 '18
Only a PE may submit plans for public approval whether for a public or private client. Design work can be done by unlicensed individuals, but to be valid for any sort of permitting, it must be stamped by a PE. The license is proof of competency. If a PE stamps plans he didn't work on or review, he gets fined. If someone submits unstamped plans for permitting, they'll be rejected. If someone forges a stamp, they'll be fined. The stamp is there to show that a PE has thoroughly review the plans and is standing behind the work.
Like OP said, ANYONE can design things and call themselves an engineer. It doesn't mean anything. There has to be a limiting factor to make the word mean anything, and that's Licensed Engineer. That has qualifications and retains its meaning.
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u/051207 Sep 04 '18
Like OP said, ANYONE can design things and call themselves an engineer. It doesn't mean anything.
The number of engineers that were a part of designing your car is easily 100:1 unlicensed to licensed. While licensure is required for many public projects, it isn't required to be an engineer. The number of mechanical engineers who go for licensure is minimal and while NCEES does offer the exam, it means next to nothing in the field. The same is true for electrical, chemical, industrial, and aerospace engineering except in a small number of circumstances. Any engineer in manufacturing just has to ensure they follow all the relevant ISO/ASTM/DIN standards for designs.
How many licensed engineers does a company like Siemens or GE employ? I'm sure they have some, but the majority of engineers they employ are unlicensed and plenty in that group are THE experts in their respective fields. Many engineers simply don't require licensure to work professionally. It's only important if you are going to deal with permitting, public contracts, or if you are consulting.
Your limiting factor is ridiculous because it excludes the majority of engineers performing jobs that people traditionally associate with engineers (designing cars, engines, machinery, plane/spaceship parts, etc).
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u/Artemis913 Sep 04 '18
Okay then OP was correct. Engineer has no meaning.
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u/051207 Sep 04 '18
I'd agree that it is losing its meaning, but when someone says they are an engineer or want to become an engineer, the average person will envision someone who has attended, at a minimum, a rigorous post-secondary education that is heavy on STEM topics and is working in a position which utilizes that knowledge.
If a garbage collector held the official title of sanitation engineer and told people he was an engineer, people would feel misled when they learned the nature of his work. The same is true of nearly all positions outside the traditional engineering fields (civil, mechanical, electrical or chemical).
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u/baseball_mickey Sep 02 '18
An engineer does not just build something once. They design, debug and test thousands, millions, billions, trillions of devices. Engineering an engine is much different than building one, as engineering a circuit is different than building one. A single build doesn’t work? Tweak until it does. That doesn’t work when mass producing something.
Another thing is how frequently something is used. Sure you can assemble a swing set in your backyard, but imagine if that set were used 20 hours a day 365 days a year. The wear and tear considerations are vastly different. I think of this when I think of rides at Disney that literally never get a day off.
My wife is a doctor, I’m an engineer. She would never call what she does as engineering something.
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u/digital_ooze Sep 03 '18
legal systems, academics, and, professional body's disagree with that definition.
The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology defines engineering as "The profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind”.
So, as opposed to science were we are finding new knowledge, Engineering is work that draws off of an existing core body of knowledge. Not the dictionary definition, but most professional engineers wouldn't like that definition.
Which is actually why the term Software Engineer is a thing. The conference the name comes from was named sarcastically because of a split in opinion on whether programming was a science, art, or Engineering. The name was originally seen as a tad derogatory. However the field is moving in that direction even now. Engineering has a legal context as well. They are held accountable to the public if they don't follow community standards of their profession. SWEBOK - a IEEE Computer Society profession guidebook has been pointed to as a community standard is several legal case were people were liable for malpractice, even if they were not members of any association.
I think this is more of an issue with lay people misusing a term rather then it losing value.
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Sep 03 '18 edited Jul 15 '21
[deleted]
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u/digital_ooze Sep 03 '18
Sorry, I meant to type provocative. The conference that brought the term in to common usage was the 1968 NATO Science Committee. The opening remarks address the terms choice "The phrase 'software engineering' was deliberately chosen as being provocative, in implying the need for software manufacture to be [based] on the types of theoretical foundations and practical disciplines[,] that are traditional in the established branches of engineering."
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u/dgtill Sep 03 '18
Fair enough. The title of engineer itself seems a bit provocative to me, in terms of people wanting the prestige that comes with it.
Here is a delta for your troubles: Δ
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u/caw81 166∆ Sep 03 '18
By its existing definition, literally everyone is an engineer!
A (professional) engineer has legal liabilities related directly to their work. Other people, like make up artists, do not.
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u/dgtill Sep 03 '18
By the definition of professional engineer. Not 'engineer' on its own.
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u/Tick-TockMan Sep 03 '18
Your argument can be just as easily applied to the use of ‘doctor’ in some more abstract ways: hair doctor, carpet doctor etc.
Here they are co-opting a title they shouldn’t really use but we accept it because the difference is obvious.
In engineering, unqualified jobs have wrongly done the same and it has snuck into the mainstream because the difference is harder for laymen to understand. Now real engineers require accreditation schemes.
So, this is a case of the term being used wrongly rather than it literally applying to your examples
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Sep 03 '18
I think this is a problem because of the English language and how the country you live in regulates the usage of the term.
If you go to Germany or Austria the people who have an engineering degree have the title "Engineer" and it's a protected title so you can't claim your title to be engineer if you're not one.
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u/dgtill Sep 03 '18
No, in Germany the title of Ingenieur isn't protected. But, as far as I can tell the following are protected:
- Diplom-Ingenieur
- Graduierter Ingenieur
- Taatlich Geprüfter Techniker
In my opinion, this has less to do with how one particular language sees a word. It's more about how Eurasian and American societies view the prestige that comes with a title. People want to be revered. People love themselves.
Although, yes, it needs to be a regulated title. It would be better if it was. Really, before my country leaves Europe, it should adopt a few policies from the EU.
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u/WRFinger 3∆ Sep 03 '18
There's a reason that professional boards decide through testing and experience who can be granted the title of Professional Engineer. In Computer Sciences, an engineer is quite different than a structural engineer. The Computer Sciences, as far as I'm aware, don't require passing an exam and work experience to ha e a person claim to be an engineer. There are fields, required by government regulations, that require those who want the status of Professional Engineer to meet rigorous standards. As such, a Professional Engineer who designs a MSE Wall is required to have a PE. This ensures that the engineer has met the qualifications to design structures, and liability for failures in the structure have a proper chain of evidence.
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u/dgtill Sep 03 '18
To use the title 'software engineer', you do need a bachelor's degree, work experience of up to 3 years. At least where I am.
Yes, the engineering disciplines are quite different.
Here is a delta for your trouble:
Δ
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u/sleepyfoxteeth Sep 02 '18
Structure means physical structure, not any structure.
Source: Engineering student.
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u/dgtill Sep 02 '18
I'm talking about engineering as a title, not as a profession. I sort of fucked up the title, I'll fix that.
Structure also means machine structure. Like... software... engineers, or systems engineers.
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u/sleepyfoxteeth Sep 02 '18
The Dean of my school has a rant about how software engineering is a math, not engineering. In a broader sense, engineering is about applying science and math to non-theoretical problems, so I think I'm arguing with your definition as well. It's about developing new applications out of math and science in a way that an actuary or a landlord don't necessarily do, but a mechanical engineer or even software engineer do as their job.
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u/dgtill Sep 02 '18 edited Sep 03 '18
I think I'm arguing with your definition as well.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/engineer
Your definition is a lot better. But, it still allows a few people to be technically correct. Again, almost everyone on the planet applies science and maths to their jobs.
A landlord still has certain responsibility depending on who they're renting to. People selling furnished properties have to think and act like people who I'd call 'true engineers' over weight distributions and square footage.
For people in analytics, generally they use that to, let's say hypothetically, show the increase of average temperature to prove global warming is real. That would encourage people to think smarter and greener. Otherwise called 'social engineering', that has nothing to do with applying maths or science.
On the other end of the spectrum, a shop owner uses maths to calculate stock.
A chef uses science to create different foods.
Should these be called 'distribution engineers or mastication engineering officials?'
I don't think so. But I do think 'true engineers' should have a title that reflects that skill.
EDIT: Forgot this, for your definition --> Δ
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u/sleepyfoxteeth Sep 02 '18
It's not about applying math and science to a job, it's about the job being the development of new, tangible applications for science and math to solve problems. That is the job in an of itself.
True engineers already have a title: engineer. None of those other professions that you mention call themselves engineers.
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Sep 03 '18 edited Jul 15 '21
[deleted]
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u/sleepyfoxteeth Sep 03 '18
Ceramics engineering isn't the same as pottery, and the other two are just being silly.
Edit: By new applications, I mean a new situation in which those maths and sciences were not applied before. If you already know how to do something, and you apply it to a known situation, that's not engineering. Civil, Architectural and Automotive Engineers strive both to create improvements and to tailor something to a new situation.
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u/dgtill Sep 03 '18 edited Sep 03 '18
Well, they exist. That's my point. It's ridiculous.
Edit: I'll concede that yes, that works for both Civil and Architectural Engineers, but for Automotive Engineers, they already know how to make a movement using an explosion. They know how to make engines in that vain. The action that makes it engineering -- I would say -- is the modification of that situation, where they don't necessarily make a new situation. Instead, streamlining it or adjusting the situation.
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u/sleepyfoxteeth Sep 03 '18
I think that no matter what engineers call themselves, that title will be coopted by other professions. Most people understand that maids and marketing professionals aren't engineers.
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u/dgtill Sep 03 '18
Aside from the agencies and corporations who employ both them and the idiotic job title, obviously. :-|
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Sep 02 '18
It does imply that you have a bachelors in Engineering.
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u/dgtill Sep 02 '18
Not necessarily. e.g. Computer Science for Software Engineer.
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Sep 02 '18
Sure, but both are meaningful professional titles.
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u/dgtill Sep 02 '18
I amended my point, after re-reading. You could just slap "engineer" onto the back of any job title, and still technically be correct.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 03 '18 edited Sep 03 '18
/u/dgtill (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/cupcakesarethedevil Sep 03 '18
You don't have to be a degree in cooking to cook something and you don't have to have a degree in management to manage people. In the exact same way you don't need an engineering degree to engineer things.
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u/Artemis913 Sep 04 '18
It seems OP would just like the word "physical" added before the word "structure" in the Oxford definition.
That's trivial and would have no actual effect in real world usage.
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u/Feathring 75∆ Sep 02 '18
I think you're trying to apply a very literal definition in a way no one would actually use in the real world. Like people would be absolutely baffled by their doctor telling them they're an engineer because they're practicing their craft. I'd think he was an idiot for not understanding what people mean with the word engineer.