OT: PhD in Electronic Engineering

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That is not entirely true. As little as 20 years ago i was asked to be a non-degreed supervisor of degreed engineers. I was stupid and did not take it. I had been bad mouthing local non-degreed engineers supervising degreed engineers for (what i thought were) good reasons.

Nowdays in that same workplace there are no non-degreed engineers, but some techs that completed the BS degree and are now engineers.

I doubt such could happen any more, HR would prevent it.

About that time i counseled a good friend to go for the MS, it made him a much better engineer and opened many doors for him. As part of that i helped him learn an electronic CAD tool. He has forgiven me for requiring that he personally develop such expertise, he has found out (the hard way) just how valuable it is.

Similarly i had PHD engineering professors that were no good and what little they did know was 30 years out of date.

There is already moves afoot to make the MS the minimum degree, if we engineers (who impact society at least as much as Doctors and Lawyers) want the same professional respect, we must needs demand at least an MS as the first working level degree. It is coming, prepare accordingly.

Yeah, a bit of drift there.

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Aye, there is an actual legal difference in the testimony of a P.E. versus all other comers.

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Typical Guv'ment triple standards. In '71 i chose navy as the least dishonest way to go, i came back from boot camp to a letter from the local draft board, telling me to report. I replied, sorry i am already in the navy.

One of the men in my Basic Training Unit got his draft notice mailed to him at Ft. Knox, addressed to our unit. It was mailed after he was supposed to report to the local draft board, and told him that if he didn't surrender to the authorities in the next 24 hours, he would spend the next three years at Levenworth prison.

I was interested in joining the Air Force when I was drafted, but had no choice. One would let me join, the other didn't give a damn. At that time the Air Force had a better electronics school.

Doesn't it seem like it would make a lot more sense to instead revert the graduation requirements for BSEEs to something a little more in-depth, as they were decades back?

While there's no question that for some people there's great value to be had in an MSEE, in many cases I just don't see that value being equal to, e.g., the, say, $25-$50k in tuition/room/board/etc. getting it will incur as well as losing out on (say) two years of a $30-$50k (entry level) job.

Upper-level formal education strikes me as even less useful for many a programmer: I knew plenty of bright kids coming out of high school who were better programmers than many a BSCS graduate I've met. John Carmack only spent two semesters at college before going freelance, Tim Sweeney was working on a BSME that he didn't quite finish (although he does credit the math courses in helping him greatly), and of course everyone knows about Bill Gates.

Is an MSCS going to become the "new standard" as well? :-(

It's highly disheartening that we're becoming a society where titles are more important than performance. It's a house of cards that's not at all in the tradition of what made this country great.

---Joel

What does "in-depth" mean? Once upon a time, MIT taught fundamentals, so fundamental that I can drop into _any_ electronics technology at will... tubes, BJT's, CMOS, xMOS, twisty-curly magnetic things... anything.

Now, it seems, "education" is aimed at things so specific that the student has no clue about 1" off-path :-(

My oldest son dropped out of the UofA BSCS program... he was making more money on the side than graduates :-) He eventually got the degree because companies tend toward "paper credentials". [snip] ...Jim Thompson

"Jim Thompson" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

If nothing else, it means taking a lot of the material that's already been moved from undergrad.-level classes to grad.-level classes and moving it back down to the undergraduate level.

Or at least teach whatever it takes such that fewer than, say, one BSEE graduate in a million fails John's "What's the output of this voltage divider?" question. (I know, I know, you aren't always that impressed with his design skills :-), but he's still far above average relative to graduates today -- he is able to successfully sell the things, after all, to people with pretty high expectations!)

Yep.

---Joel

You _have_ to do it. The real world with your current degree in the UK market is not that disimilar to that for everyone else - and the competition for some jobs is horrendous.

And you want to get out. You need points to enter some countries. A PhD will certainly help to do that. BTW learn a foreign language.

Twenty years ago I got the same degree, flunked the last year and came out in third division. After working in research for a few years as a technician, became a self taught computer programmer. Now fed up of working for idiots, I'm heading for survival selling off things on eBay and probably end up running a coffee shop. My degree now means zilch, and at 43 I'm now too old to make investing in doing further IT qualifications worthwhile given the current UK employment situation.

Wish you the best. Go for it!

:-)

But why is it that I've heard of so many PEs looking for a job, some rather desperately? Seem it's mostly utilities who hire them, because they have to for certain jobs. Civil engineering PEs all seem to have a job, electrical not so much.

Nonsense.

It's pretty much useless except for _public_ practice, such as architects, and related civil engineering. ...Jim Thompson

German or Mandarin

With a P.E. (P.Eng in Canada) a license is granted by a professional organization wot can discipline the practicioner if we are found to violate the written code of ethics or are incompetent. The actual practice of professional engineering (according to some reasonable definitions and with some given exclusions) may be limited to members of the organization. Much as with other professions such as medicine and law.

It's obviously not a substitute for knowledge and experience, and isn't all that required outside of certain industries (aerospace, utilities etc.). Generally if a mistake can result in personal injury or death it's more likely to be required. The requirements in Ontario are to have met confirmed education (at least a 4-year degree, IIRC) and experience requirements (some years working under a licensed engineer) and to pass a written exam covering both law and ethics. If you don't have skills that are in demand, it won't make a lick of difference, IMO.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany, P.Eng PMP

IIRC in the US some states require that registered guys carry PL insurance. Which you can't get if you do med projects. That alone turns it what the Romans used to call ad absurdum.

So, then, why are pretty much none of the automotive engineers licensed? And aerospace, and medical, and ...

Over here in the US the requirements to even be able to sit for the test are rather onerous, so most people just don't care. Employers sure don't, except utilities and such. In Europe most countries don't even have all that license legalese, except to some extent England.

Most aerospace guys *are*. Anything structural especially.. Don't know about medical-- they seem to be more interested in how deep the insurance pockets are than qualifications in my limited experience.

I don't think there is a culture in automotive that puts liability on the heads of the engineers. In civil and much of mechanical there certainly is.

Looks like at least some states have a technical content to the exam, which seems pretty redundant unless they feel they don't have a way of knowing if the degrees are any good.

To be completely compliant you'd probably have to maintain licenses in every jurisdiction in which you have customers, which is pretty impractical, but in general I think the self-regulating body approach is the correct one for a profession. These days they're even extending their tentacles to technicians, which I think is going too far- more of a money grab, but then companies like Microsoft started it with their "certification" money-making activities.

I think that Microsoft/Novell/etc. started their certification programs originally not so much out of a goal to make money (although it certainly does do that, now), but rather a recognition that very little you learn in the course of pursuing a BSCS will help you to set up, e.g., a Windows domain server with hot-failover along with a RAID array and IIS, Exchange Server, etc. all running on the thing.

EEs there typically aren't. I doubt that the MEs are but next time I can ask. The typical scenario in many companies that need to stamp stuff is that they have one PE on staff, and the others aren't.

Also, in med, aero and similar markets just about any design must go through a myriad of agency tests so the chances for a screw-up are rather slim.

In the whole 24 years I've never met a PE in medical devices. It would have been on their business cards.

But first you must have had a FE test, often come from an ABET-compliant university (which can in essence be construed as age discrimination), and have worked 4 years under a PE. Before being allowed the PE exam. If your main industry (like mine) does not have any PE's that's sort of impossible. Oh well ...

I prefer not to increase the regulatory burden on a profession. Unless there is hardcore cause, and with engineers that is not the case. Otherwise no-license places like Europe would have gone up in a fireball already and they haven't. Why on earth should some bureaucrats decide who is an engineer and not a university? That never made sense to me, never will.

When I graduated the EIT (Engineer in Training) part of the PE exam was certainly technical but nothing to do with an EE. Most of the topics we didn't even study, as an EE. Didn't bother and certainly haven't missed it.

You can bet politicians won't leave a source of revenue lay fallow after someone like M$ shows there is money to be made *without* the force of law.

... Don't

"PE in medical devices"? PEs here aren't "in" anything, one of the reasons the whole concept of the PE is silly.

I imagine some would like to see these "moves afoot" come to be. It would simply cheapen the BSEE degree.

How about that AGW?