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In the state of Texas you are allowed to be titled as an Engineer if you are performing engineering like work for a company that does engineering in general, but it is completely illegal to represent yourself as an Engineer without that protection. I am taking the PE exam in 2 weeks and really should start studying for it now, but it's open book...
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Oct 11, 2013 04:44
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Oil! posted:In the state of Texas you are allowed to be titled as an Engineer if you are performing engineering like work for a company that does engineering in general, but it is completely illegal to represent yourself as an Engineer without that protection. You get 2? minutes per question so good luck digging through books to answer many questions. Some people being suitcases full of books which baffles me. I took my reference manual, the NEC code book, a EE handbook, a book on electric machines and my practice exams. I did end up briefly looking at all of them, but mostly in the NEC for the more obscure code questions. I can't possibly imagine having a dozen books to sift through.
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Oct 11, 2013 14:55
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6 min per question. Also if you take the civil structural you have 7 required code books plus it is good to have the CERM and the practice exams. So yeah a suitcase is actually needed to get the stuff there.
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Oct 11, 2013 15:01
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Prefect Six posted:Late to the PE talk, but I'm an EE with a PE in the Power industry. As someone who worked his butt off for 5 years in college and 4 years after college to get those letters after my name, I strongly dislike people with no actual degree or background in engineering being called engineers. "Sales engineers" who aren't engineers is stupid and I personally think degrades to some extent the prestige of our profession.  PEs represent! Civils have it worst for the PE exam; see those poor bastards with loving handtrucks full of books. I think I had 5 or 6 with me for electrical. While the FE exam tests knowledge, the PE exam tests how well you know how to use your references. I found that most of the questions had a trivial solution and you really didn't need as much time as they gave. So if your solution is going to involve 20 minutes of hard crunching, you're probably doing it wrong and should skip it and come back later if you have time. I ended up finishing up the afternoon in like 2 hours and was able to spend the next 2 hours checking my work and a full hour working on one question that was utterly frustrating me because I knew how to do it but my answer wasn't listed. Still think they hosed that particular problem up.The way I see it, we're all hacks, though. You ain't a real engineer unless you're driving a train. 
grover fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 15:04
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Prefect Six posted:Late to the PE talk, but I'm an EE with a PE in the Power industry. As someone who worked his butt off for 5 years in college and 4 years after college to get those letters after my name, I strongly dislike people with no actual degree or background in engineering being called engineers. "Sales engineers" who aren't engineers is stupid and I personally think degrades to some extent the prestige of our profession. I think industrial exemption needs to go away and all engineers should be licensed in order to practice just like lawyers and accountants. This would clear a lot of dead weight from the ranks as well as keep that obnoxious IT dork from frothing at the mouth when I tell him he's not an engineer.
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Oct 11, 2013 16:07
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Thoguh fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Aug 10, 2023 |
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Oct 11, 2013 16:46
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Thoguh posted:I think a big part of that is that engineering is one of the few professions where if you do something sketchy five years down the line thousands of people could die and it can be directly traced back to something a specific engineer did or didn't do. It gives the profession incentive to do things right. Absolutely, which is why, as SeaBass pointed out, it sucks that joe blow gets to call himself an engineer. Engineers are expected to keep public safety first and foremost at all times and should be held accountable when something goes wrong. So it's frustrating when "jerkface A" says "Oh hey, I'm an engineer too! Says right here on my business card: Sanitation Engineeer" you have to just nod politely and go "Yeah that's nice". We're kinda at the point where anyone in any sort of technology or manufacturing field just slaps "engineer" next to their title so being licensed isn't as special or important as it should be. I'm a little biased though. Prefect Six fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 11, 2013 18:28
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Prefect Six posted:So it's frustrating when "jerkface A" says "Oh hey, I'm an engineer too! Says right here on my business card: Sanitation Engineeer" you have to just nod politely and go "Yeah that's nice". Just tell them that when they get a PE in that they can come talk to you. I do this wil other sales engineers. Shuts them up pretty quick.
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Oct 11, 2013 23:33
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Isn't engineering enrollment in the Western world down every year? Soon we will be rare and prized as a spotted leopard and we won't need a title! Who truly embodies the public's nerd stereotype: engineers, real scientists (not some pretty premed bio major who wears glasses), or "those" IT-tech people. In my vast professional experience an engineer is not really a nerd. More of a mildly conservative dad in his early 50s who likes to work in his garage and has some specific hobbies.
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Oct 12, 2013 01:56
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Oil! posted:In the state of Texas you are allowed to be titled as an Engineer if you are performing engineering like work for a company that does engineering in general, but it is completely illegal to represent yourself as an Engineer without that protection. I had 2 books, my PE ref and an EM book that turned out to be useful for one of the questions (took the EE exam). You really should get familiar with your refs. Good luck! Hed fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 02:22
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As an engineer who really doesn't want to bother taking the PE I am very happy it is not required to call yourself an engineer. As long as I (and my bosses) know that I'm doing actual engineering work, I don't really care if someone wants to call themselves a 'sandwich engineer' or whatever.
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Oct 12, 2013 03:02
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Hed posted:I had 2 books, my PE ref and an EM book that turned out to be useful for one of the questions (took the EE exam). You really should get familiar with your refs. Good luck! Thanks. The preparation book and course I have for the exam (Petroleum Engineering) recommends 11-15 sources maximum (mainly from a carrying point of view) and has 77 recommended references, of which over half are not in print or are proprietary documents from service companies. The good news is that the passing score hovers around 50% because of how broad the questions are. The course instructor helped write questions for the sections he wasn't doing the training for (he taught Drilling, Production, and Facilities engineering and wrote for Reservoir engineering and formation evaluation) and said that they are moving away from calculation based questions because most relevant ones are not taught in textbooks and need nomographs from other sources. The exam used to have 8 questions that were full design questions and one of them actually required you to point out that the design they wanted was not feasible because it required a 30' tall vertical separator 2' wide. The one great benefit from the course was that the other half was taught by my college professor and every single review topic and question is stuff I was taught in school, so I guess going to a podunk D3 school that doesn't have a graduate program has its benefits.
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Oct 12, 2013 03:14
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Prefect Six posted:Absolutely, which is why, as SeaBass pointed out, it sucks that joe blow gets to call himself an engineer. Engineers are expected to keep public safety first and foremost at all times and should be held accountable when something goes wrong. So it's frustrating when "jerkface A" says "Oh hey, I'm an engineer too! Says right here on my business card: Sanitation Engineeer" you have to just nod politely and go "Yeah that's nice". I feel like the arrogance and classism of your viewpoint seems a little unbefitting an adult of any title. I mean does it really matter at all?
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Oct 12, 2013 06:03
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What should the titles of application/sales engineers be then? Or even engineers who don't work on civil or infrastructure and don't need their PE or FE or anything? Just curious.
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Oct 12, 2013 07:15
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Uncle Jam posted:What should the titles of application/sales engineers be then? Or even engineers who don't work on civil or infrastructure and don't need their PE or FE or anything? Just curious. Personally I think that people use the title engineer as long as they have the degree or experience to cover those jobs. The difference for Professional Engineers would be the P.E. attached after the name, but this comes from a state where anyone is an "engineer" as long as they have organizational cover.
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Oct 12, 2013 07:41
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I work in aerospace and I know of two PE's in my department of about 50. I had to explain what the FE was to my supervisor. It's surprising because I work in an extremely safety conscious discipline but personal liability isn't really there. Not sure if I'll take the Structural or Mechanical Systems PE, but neither one will be fun at all. When I took the FE, the PE candidates had radio flyer wagons full of books. Crazy.
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Oct 12, 2013 18:48
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borodino posted:I feel like the arrogance and classism of your viewpoint seems a little unbefitting an adult of any title. I mean does it really matter at all? I am probably being a little zealous about it, but I think it goes back to the whole accountant/lawyer thing. Would you want someone who took a personal finance class in high school and micro econ in college offering services as an accountant? Or someone who took BLaw defending you in a civil complaint? I know these are extreme examples and most states do prohibit anyone without a PE license offering services to the public, but is it really such a bad thing to have everyone practicing engineering be licensed? There aren't any practicing lawyers who haven't passed a bar exam. As far as the whole sales/applications thing, a good percentage of the manufacturer reps I know have their PE.
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Oct 12, 2013 20:16
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Does anyone have any knowledge/experience/advice if I'm interested in living in Europe for a while? Background, I have a masters degree and have been working at a government research lab for the last two years. Also 3 years of industrial experience prior to my MS. I work in a very niche field of CFD, but I'm not necessarily looking to stay in my specific career - I'd be interested in any type of modeling/simulation work primarily.
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Oct 12, 2013 20:37
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Prefect Six posted:Absolutely, which is why, as SeaBass pointed out, it sucks that joe blow gets to call himself an engineer. Engineers are expected to keep public safety first and foremost at all times and should be held accountable when something goes wrong. On the other hand, legally defining common words when you could just as easily make a pretty certification that says "this person is allowed to design things that must not fail under x, y, z conditions" is kind of silly. "Engineer" is a word with a pretty broad meaning. You don't have to restrict its use to a tiny amount of people to make them feel better about themselves if your goal is to make sure bridges don't fall down. You can make a new word for that. Prefect Six posted:is it really such a bad thing to have everyone practicing engineering be licensed? Depends on the engineering. Safe and Secure! fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Oct 12, 2013 |
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Oct 12, 2013 21:12
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I couldn't care less. For instance, nobody other than a sanitary engineer takes the term "sanitary engineer" seriously. Everyone knows that means "janitor" much to the chagrin of sanitary engineers.
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Oct 13, 2013 04:52
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Yes I would love to take a test about codes that I would never ever use in my life. I'm sure all my friends in semiconductors would also get a kick out of it.
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Oct 13, 2013 06:43
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The PE exam is specialized for each discipline, with relevant questions to your field. If you sit for the PE in for computer engineering, you're not going to be answering questions about the reactance of high voltage utility lines.The Experiment posted:I couldn't care less. For instance, nobody other than a sanitary engineer takes the term "sanitary engineer" seriously. Everyone knows that means "janitor" much to the chagrin of sanitary engineers.
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Oct 13, 2013 16:10
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I'm probably not going to ever have a job that I'll need a PE for but I still kinda want to take the test eventually so I can get that sweet-rear end stamp.
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Oct 13, 2013 16:53
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If it makes anyone feel better, the IT industry is generally moving away from using the term "engineer" in favor of "architect" it seems.
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Oct 13, 2013 16:59
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grover posted:The PE exam is specialized for each discipline, with relevant questions to your field. If you sit for the PE in for computer engineering, you're not going to be answering questions about the reactance of high voltage utility lines. Yeah, I looked at the exams. They seem very broad in my own opinion. I'm not saying there is no need for them, but demanding that a bunch of people take them that don't need to because of precious titles is ridiculous.
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Oct 13, 2013 18:46
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My job title seems to be in constant flux, altering to suit the needs of whoever is using it, but I usually just introduce myself to vendors and clients as my company's engineer, and hope that expertise and knowledge bases get covered via the conservation rather than in the shorthand of a title. Since engineering is exceptional broad even in field, I don't think titles are particularly useful.
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Oct 13, 2013 18:55
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grover posted:The PE exam is specialized for each discipline, with relevant questions to your field. If you sit for the PE in for computer engineering, you're not going to be answering questions about the reactance of high voltage utility lines. I would think that sanitation engineers who design and build sewage treatment plants probably have a pretty good sense of humor about that sort of thing. Maybe they don't.
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Oct 13, 2013 20:38
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I have a PE question: what do you do if your job has nothing to do with your undergraduate major? I'm a civil engineer but my job is about 80% mechanical engineering and 20% electrical engineering. So if I were to study for the Civil PE, I would essentially be starting over from scratch. Do I have to take the Civil PE? It seems like I would fare better doing a Mechanical or even an Electrical PE test.
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Oct 13, 2013 21:08
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You can take whatever you want. The key is that once you pass you agree to only work in an area of competency and not stamp anything otherwise. It doesn't matter because your stamp just says registered PE. This may be different in different states. I am in a the same situation as you. I am taking the civil structural in 2 weeks and I don't do any structural work that is actually on the exam (drilled pier foundations being really the only thing). I took an afternoon review course and have been studying. I think it is 50/50 on me passing. There is just way to many codes and different stuff you have to know.
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Oct 13, 2013 21:31
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spwrozek posted:You can take whatever you want. The key is that once you pass you agree to only work in an area of competency and not stamp anything otherwise. It doesn't matter because your stamp just says registered PE. This may be different in different states. Most of the states I have a license in want you to declare a discipline, if I recall correctly. If you're doing mechanical work then I imagine you will probably want to sit for the mechanical test. You might read up your state's board rules and familiarize yourself with the requirements.
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Oct 14, 2013 01:11
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spwrozek posted:You can take whatever you want. The key is that once you pass you agree to only work in an area of competency and not stamp anything otherwise. It doesn't matter because your stamp just says registered PE. This may be different in different states. Engineers are generally expected to know what specific areas they're competent in, and only stamp those areas, regardless of what the exam says. There's a lot of ethics and trust. grover fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Oct 14, 2013 |
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Oct 14, 2013 01:25
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showbiz_liz posted:Am I a total idiot for thinking I could go back to school for engineering at age 25 with no prior science or math background? I am 40, with a kid, wife, and a full time job. I begin my pursuit of my BSME this coming summer 
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Oct 15, 2013 01:35
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I have a general question: How useful is it to learn continuum mechanics and plasticity theory? Should I learn how to deal with tensors and such? Or just take an introduction course for a FEA program?
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Oct 19, 2013 12:52
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AstroWhale posted:I have a general question: How useful is it to learn continuum mechanics and plasticity theory? Should I learn how to deal with tensors and such? Or just take an introduction course for a FEA program? Here's a general answer: in my opinion, a computer should only save on time, not understanding. If you don't have a conceptual idea of the calculations and reasoning being performed, then you shouldn't be using the program.
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Oct 19, 2013 16:28
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AstroWhale posted:I have a general question: How useful is it to learn continuum mechanics and plasticity theory? Should I learn how to deal with tensors and such? Or just take an introduction course for a FEA program? Personal anecdote: I was working with a grad student once who was having some issues with a CFD program, with results massively off scale compared to what he expected. It turned out that he was using the aircraft wing span as the characteristic length for the Reynolds number, instead of the wing chord. This sounds silly because it is, but when all you do all day is look at programs and numbers silly mistakes like this can crop up. The only reason he noticed the error is because he was familiar with the idealized inviscid mechanics and had a sanity check when going through the data.
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Oct 19, 2013 16:45
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RogueLemming posted:Here's a general answer: in my opinion, a computer should only save on time, not understanding. If you don't have a conceptual idea of the calculations and reasoning being performed, then you shouldn't be using the program. This times a million. I had a young guy doing a design and he was coming up with really big wood poles. Based on what the loads were it seemed way wrong but he had no idea. Ended up with some wrong inputs. If he had just done a quick hand moment calculation it would have been obvious.
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Oct 19, 2013 17:58
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AstroWhale posted:I have a general question: How useful is it to learn continuum mechanics and plasticity theory? Should I learn how to deal with tensors and such? Or just take an introduction course for a FEA program? Continuum mechanics is loving awesome and the only class that really ties together all the miscellaneous poo poo you learn about stress and strain into a coherent, easily comprehensible whole (at least for solids - haven't done much on the fluids side). You should take it. Also, if you don't take it you're probably going to have trouble with an FEA class (at least at the graduate level) since the solution methods all make extensive use of the full stress/strain tensors to calculate (and then minimize) strain energy. Seriously, continuum mechanics is awesome. What are the principal stresses and directions? Why, they're just the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the stress tensor! How do I calculate stress and strain in an arbitrary direction? Just pick a convenient basis for the stress tensor, then rotate to the required basis! e: also the math is typically pretty drat easy since most of it is just linear algebra
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Oct 20, 2013 11:31
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So, I'm about to take the FE this coming Saturday - any suggestions for ways to study for this thing? I've got a copy of the reference book to look over, but other than that I was just planning on winging it. I'm a ChemE fwiw
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Oct 21, 2013 20:32
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Traitorous Leopard posted:So, I'm about to take the FE this coming Saturday - any suggestions for ways to study for this thing? I've got a copy of the reference book to look over, but other than that I was just planning on winging it. I didn't take the Chemical test so I can only speak for the first part. Actually knowing where in the book to look for the formulas and tables you'll need is the big one. Make sure you remember how to use the compounding interest tables, they're like free points if you take 5 minutes to look over how they work but I never really knew the stuff beforehand. Really it's a pretty easy test, especially if you were in school recently and remember enough to figure out which formula or table you need to look up for a given problem.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:16
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At this point you will either know it or not. Doing some problems in the book is your best bet though.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:17
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