Are You a Dinosaur? (Education Part 1)

Dean didn’t know he was a dinosaur. Dean, an engineer who built and used scale models of rivers, was pretty good at his job.  The problem was that fewer and fewer clients wanted scale models. They considered them to be obsolete technology. When our boss told Dean that he needed to learn to use new technology, numerical models that ran on computers, he replied, “I’m not interested in that stuff. You’ll find something for me to do.” Dean was justifiably fired, unwilling to cope with a changing work environment. His career was as extinct as the dinosaurs’ dominant role on earth.

Graduating with a degree in engineering equips us with a substantial store of knowledge plus the engineer’s advantage, giving us an edge over other fields. Our edge – a methodical process to identify and solve challenging problems – provides excellent job opportunities and pay but comes with a big catch – edges get dull. We must continually sharpen it or lose it. Ok, I’m changing the analogy from a dinosaur to an axe. Humor me.

College can’t cram everything we need to know as practicing engineers into just 4 or 5 years. College gives us only the basics and prepares us for the real learning to follow. To continue the axe analogy, engineering school gives us a rough edge that’s okay for chopping soft wood but we need sharpen that edge to cut harder stuff. Jeremy, a master’s student, remarked that graduate school taught him how little he really knew.  He said that after his bachelor’s degree, he thought there was nothing left to learn in engineering. Graduate courses smacked him in the face with how much more he needed to learn.

The second part of the catch is that knowledge grows obsolete. Some experts say that the half-life of engineering knowledge is about 5 years. We have to be current in our knowledge and skills to keep a sharp edge and do good work. Sharpen the edge.

Next time: Raising the Bar

Raising the Bar (Education Part 2)

Last time we considered how an engineering degree is a wonderful start, but not enough.

The first two years of an engineering curriculum consists mainly of math and physics courses that prepare us for the engineering-specific courses to follow. For example, we must understand calculus in order to fully understand physics and to learn modern methods in solid, fluid and granular dynamics. And we have to have those dynamics classes to take on engineering design. Taking junior and senior level engineering courses without knowing calculus would be difficult to impossible. So even though most practicing engineers never explicitly use calculus in their day-to-day work, their education and work depend on knowing it. A lot of material has to be understood before we get that engineering degree.

When I was in Arizona State’s college of engineering we occasionally laid aside our clay tablet textbooks and whined, “How can we possibly complete 140 semester hours in just four years?” Our professors chortled and told us they had graduated with a required 150 hours. Today an engineering degree can be obtained with 125 to 130 hours at many universities. What got left out in downsizing the curriculum? Lots of technical material that an engineer needs to do her job got pushed into graduate courses.

The reality is that we can’t learn everything we need in an undergraduate engineering program.

The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), discipline-specific organizations like the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and others recognized this situation and launched “Raising the Bar” initiatives. For example, ASCE recommends a bachelor’s degree plus 30 semester hours of graduate study as the minimum for professional training. The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) has established a model professional engineering (PE) licensing law that requires the same before the PE exam can be taken. Several states have announced their intent to enact the model law and all will eventually.

Some practicing engineers grumble that Raising the Bar is a plot by university professors to jack up graduate school enrollment. They are wrong. Private sector companies started it, complaining that they had to train new engineers extensively before they could be turned loose on real engineering work. Raise the Bar was pushed by the private sector and universities followed.

How do you get the extra 30 semester hours?

Next time: Get paid to go to school?

Get Paid to Go to School? (Education Part 3)

I can hear the groans. I just finished my bachelor’s degree. Do I need graduate study, too?

The answer is yes, all 21^st century engineers need graduate study. The only real question is how to get it.

The reasons for the “yes” are that graduate study …

1.     Is an investment that pays off financially.

2.     Increases the quality of your professional life.

3.     Raises your professional standing with management and clients.

4.     Is ASCE’s and NCEES’ proposed minimal standard of competence. (see the prior post about raising the bar.)

Look at Reason 1, “… pays off financially.” Numerous studies over multiple years show that a master’s degree in engineering produces an increase in pay of more than 10% that persists for most of a career. That’s a big payoff over 30 years.

Reasons 2 and 3 mean that advanced degree holders:

·       get more challenging and interesting assignments

·       often get promoted earlier

·       usually get selected for a job over someone with a bachelor’s degree.

Further, engineers can get paid to go to graduate school. Full time students can get either a teaching assistantship or a research assistantship with:

·       A monthly stipend. (you won’t get rich on it but it’s enough for most young folks.)

·       Access to external and internal fellowships.

·       Tuition remission (i.e., it pays all or most tuition).

·       One-on-one mentoring by your faculty supervisor.

An alternative to full time graduate school: Work for an organization that supports graduate education (many pay the tuition) and take classes part-time. That takes longer and affects personal time but it enables you to earn a full engineering salary while doing it. Distance education is now widely available and web-based courses are dramatically better than the old videos-by-mail courses. Some allow real-time interaction with the professor and other students.

Next time: Keeping your sharp edge.

Keeping Your Edge (Education Part 4)

You aren’t done when you get that master’s degree or doctorate. Every Professional Engineering (PE) state licensing board requires continuing education credits to keep your PE license. But even without a PE, we have to keep sharpening our edge with life-long learning to do good work.

Fortunately, a continuing education industry strives to meet the PE need. Professional societies, universities, and private companies offer continuing education ranging from one-hour webinars to week-long mini-courses. Many professional conferences offer 4- and 8-hour workshops on technical subjects. Just be sure that the training qualifies by the criteria of the states where you’re registered. Some states are picky about which training sources are acceptable.

On-the-job training can be part of your edge sharpening. It’s considered a basic part of a new engineer’s job, sometimes as part of formal mentoring and rotational assignments. OJT can also be used by experienced engineers by asking for temporary assignments to a new area or a new technology. It augments continuing education courses but doesn’t replace them.

Finally, read the technical literature – magazine, journals, books, and web sites – and attend professional conferences to learn how others are solving problems and applying new technologies. Network with colleagues and don’t be afraid to email your college professors with a question. Keep learning.

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