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If she passed the BAR then yes she is technically a lawyer and if an engineer is a registered PE then they are an engineer even if they were forced into some sub par job due to circumstances.
Being a doctor, lawyer or engineer is OUTSIDE of the job title. You get to take the title with you where ever you go. YOU are the engineer not the employer who gives you the label. We don't completely work for the company store ... yet.
Even if your job roll is a soils tech if you have a PhD you are a doctorate of what ever field, or if you have a PE you are an engineer. His roll might be a soil tech because he is desperate and his wife does not want to leave that school district for a few years but he still gets to call himself an engineer.
Now someone with an associates that barely covers algebra, nope most certainly not an engineer, I don't care what job responsibility the company embues.
I would even take it a step further and say that a PE that got their PE without examination is not an engineer by title (which texas was doing for a period of time until they realized no one could get comity because it was a joke).
If a company wants to have a monkey making design decisions that monkey is not an engineer and the company will pay for the consequences when things go awry.
We need to start bringing back serious jail time for CEOs that are cutting corners like this to line their pockets.
If you have young people working for you as "engineers in training" who don't even have an engineering degree it makes me question what your actual quals are? Yes, some how people make it through rigorous programs and still manage to boondoggle a project, but to say that removing all barriers to entry is a good idea is throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Keeping high barriers to entry at least helps keep a lot of the fly by nighters out of the profession, just because some slip through does not mean we abandon the entire certification process.
Have you ever worked with an "engineer" with a PE and SE who turned out to be a complete dumbass? Anyone who has worked in a professional field regardless of what it is long enough will run across one of these guys with lots of credentials but turned out to be a total dumbass.
Anyway, back in college one summer I worked at a hardware store. There was a guy there with a business degree. He was working in receiving. Was he a businessman even though he worked in receiving at menards?
Truly it has gotten out of hand. By the way secretary turned administrative assistants are now executive administrative assistants and many are executive event planners. We're likely leading the title inflation out here.
It's been terrible in the accounting industry as well. Associate, Senior, Supervisor, Manager, Sr. Manager, Partner, Global Partner...kindof set the stage for what people were. If you were a Senior....you could run things on your own. If you were a Supervisor, you could run projects. If you were a Manager, you could develop teams, programs etc. Sr. Manager meant you were getting ready to buy in and Partner meant you were an owner.
I had the hardest time when I first came out here, because people didn't think a lowly Accounting Manager would be the highest financial person, tackling finance and accounting, heading several divisions and having the next leg be in Corporate.
Resume inflation is out of control as well. People purporting running projects to completion that they were hired into and fired from....pretty ridiculous. Personally I blame headhunting firms sprucing up resumes and HR keywords they know nothing about. It's sad, because some of these kids could become decent accountants, but they're flying in too high and won't learn what they need to know in the trenches.
Now that I consult, I make it very easy for my bosses. I tell them they can call me Janitor in a suit....so long as they pay me my rate. Some tell me money isn't everything, and I try to quickly and nicely nudge them back to let them know it's the only carrot I plan on chasing. Honest and open.
Have you ever worked with an "engineer" with a PE and SE who turned out to be a complete dumbass? Anyone who has worked in a professional field regardless of what it is long enough will run across one of these guys with lots of credentials but turned out to be a total dumbass.
Anyway, back in college one summer I worked at a hardware store. There was a guy there with a business degree. He was working in receiving. Was he a businessman even though he worked in receiving at menards?
I simply don't agree with you.
so because a few fall between the cracks we should just throw out all licensure and degrees and any yahoo who wakes up one morning who wants to be an engineer can just go down to the union hall and sign up?
No thanks, you think that its bad because in 20 years you met one guy that somehow managed to survive the various barriers and is an idiot suddenly means that the entire process is bunk makes me think you don't have a degree or any credentials what so ever and this bridge you speak of is not exactly the mackinaw bridge where you would need a bonified bridge engineer with all the certs on top of the decades of experience.
I feel your pain ... kinda, that when you do come across that once in a 20 year licensed idiot it is a uninspiring painful experience but of all the engineers I know we don't poo poo the process because of that one guy, we thank our lucky stars that we don't have 20 more of those guys.
The people that I do know who act like that (spewing the engineers are trash mantra) are the guys that had a kid at 18 and worked labor long enough to get up to forman or what ever and did not like decisions that were being made and found out it was a design build being driven by an engineer. And even then I have found the main gripes had to do with schedule. Engineers are not (usually) compelled to work super fast because you can flail your arms around and shout, they are professionals and its going to be done right.
Also licensure takes a little power away from companies and gives it back to the individual engineer. I keep my license regardless of what muscle the company decides to flex to intimidate workers. In other words my title is not derived from my employer and I like it that way.
Also though i guess some job titles just are so old school that they need to be changed and some sound sexist. Secretary and stewardess are one example. Also who really wants to be called the garbage man? They have a dirty job and deserve some more respect than simply, garbage man i think.
so because a few fall between the cracks we should just throw out all licensure and degrees and any yahoo who wakes up one morning who wants to be an engineer can just go down to the union hall and sign up?
No thanks, you think that its bad because in 20 years you met one guy that somehow managed to survive the various barriers and is an idiot suddenly means that the entire process is bunk makes me think you don't have a degree or any credentials what so ever and this bridge you speak of is not exactly the mackinaw bridge where you would need a bonified bridge engineer with all the certs on top of the decades of experience.
I feel your pain ... kinda, that when you do come across that once in a 20 year licensed idiot it is a uninspiring painful experience but of all the engineers I know we don't poo poo the process because of that one guy, we thank our lucky stars that we don't have 20 more of those guys.
The people that I do know who act like that (spewing the engineers are trash mantra) are the guys that had a kid at 18 and worked labor long enough to get up to forman or what ever and did not like decisions that were being made and found out it was a design build being driven by an engineer. And even then I have found the main gripes had to do with schedule. Engineers are not (usually) compelled to work super fast because you can flail your arms around and shout, they are professionals and its going to be done right.
Also licensure takes a little power away from companies and gives it back to the individual engineer. I keep my license regardless of what muscle the company decides to flex to intimidate workers. In other words my title is not derived from my employer and I like it that way.
You know, you really need to learn how to read properly, man. That is not what I said at all. I am one of those engineers with a lot of certs and credentials, so why would I say certs and credentials don't count?
Having a BS in civil engineering does not make one a civil engineer. I don't care if the soil tester has a PHD in soil testing. His role is to take density tests, aka a test technician.
Let's look at it this way. Does the soil testing guy make any design decision? If something goes wrong, is he responsible? He takes readings and reports his findings to one of the engineers, who then gives a yay or nay.
I have known quite a few people with art degrees working at starbucks. Are these artists? What about the law school graduate who passed the bar exam but never found a job and work as a waitress? Is she a lawyer?
This is actually the first thing I tell all the young guys I train. Just because they got an engineering degree does not make them engineers. If they don't demonstrate it, they are not engineers.
get off your high-horse. if youre a juris doctor then youre a laywer regardless of what you do to get paid.
retired m.d.'s/professors/... are still doctors.
steven colbert calls himself dr. mos def because he got a d.f.a from reed college.
You know, you really need to learn how to read properly, man. That is not what I said at all. I am one of those engineers with a lot of certs and credentials, so why would I say certs and credentials don't count?
You should seek out a reading engineer for help
I do, I am the modeling guy (mathmatica, hysys, matlab, finite element, Visio sketches, VB code, solid works design, etc). I still write the reports but they are reviewed lol. At one point we had a technical writer but they left when all the lay offs were going on as they were putting more and more on the engineers so they could lay everyone else off. I have taken multiple tech writing classes and they have diminishing returns so I focus on technical.
So if you were not working that job you are still an engineer, even if you wife compelled you to stay someplace where you had to work as a tech you are still an engineer and can (and some would argue are legally encouraged) to stop a job if something is messed up, unsafe or just wrong.
having the title and license matters to the state so it behoves the company to entertain things you say regardless of what capacity you were hired.
Even if I am working at starbucks I am still an engineer but situations like that are purely driven by a wife or a sick family member or some other similar situation. No self respecting engineer would work at starbucks unless there were an extraordinary compelling reason. I would go to Siberia for work before I worked at starbucks or mcdonalds (but not the middle east). In my case I would look local for 2-3 months and then start looking over seas/out of state knowing that my wife will get tired of me not working and then when the first complain arises pull the trigger, if she wants to come and be supportive then great if not such is life.
No self respecting engineer works as a ditch digger. But as a tech to buy time ... maybe in which case they are still an engineer, albit an underpaid engineer.
Also you can report incompetent idiot engineers to the board if you can document their extreme baffonary. I have looked at the reports of people loosing their licence.
Also you can report incompetent idiot engineers to the board if you can document their extreme baffonary. I have looked at the reports of people loosing their licence.
I didn't report him. I just fired him. He's someone else's problem now.
get off your high-horse. if youre a juris doctor then youre a laywer regardless of what you do to get paid.
retired m.d.'s/professors/... are still doctors.
steven colbert calls himself dr. mos def because he got a d.f.a from reed college.
So, are you saying that someone who graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, but never practiced law is a lawyer?
I'm sorry, I simply do not agree with this. I'm not sitting on a high horse. I'm simply stating a fact. Having a college degree does not make one anything.
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