🚀 go-pugleaf

Robert H. Penoyer wrote:
> 
> >I have been consulting as a contract engineer for a number of years.
> >At many companies I worked for I was not "qualified" for the work I
> >did. One aerospace company paid me well for two years for my
> >"unqualified" efforts. My software flies in the A-320 and the F-15.
> >
> >In my opinion licensing is merely an effort to restrain trade.
> 
> This is a cynical but understandable opinion. Licensing of engineers
> was begun because there were a number of "engineer" charlatans who
> made their livings by defrauding the public. Some even promised to
> make water flow up hill. The states have imposed licensing in an
> effort to filter out the unqualified. It's not a perfect filter, but
> it's much better than no control at all.
> 
> The other side of the coin is that excellent, well-qualified
> engineers, degreed or not, are not "filtered in." Thus, the lack of a
> license does not imply a lack of qualification. Nevertheless, a holder
> of a state-issued engineering license is deemed qualified until found
> to be otherwise--employers use their own filters to distinguish the
> qualified from the unqualified.
> 
> >BTW I qualified as a Naval Nuclear Reactor operator with the highest
> >orals in three years. (They put a special team on me with twice as
> >many board members as usual. And three hours of questions instead of
> >the usual one to one and a half hours) I have no degree.
> 
> Those such as you are rare. I have met and worked with only a couple
> of non-degreed, but highly qualified, engineers. One was an RF
> engineer who, to my knowledge, designed the world's first solid-state,
> production, 400-watt, HF, wide-band, linear amplifier. The other is
> currently a very capable radar systems analyst.
> 
> Just as the lack of a license doesn't imply an engineer is
> unqualified, neither does the lack of a degree. The problem is there
> are so many who would like to be called "engineer" but who are totally
> unqualified that is is very difficult to separate the wheat from the
> chaff. Degrees and licenses tend to make such decisions easy, but at
> the expense of the very qualified, non-degreed, unlicensed engineer
> who, by necessity, is forced to be an excellent salesman of his
> skills.
Government controls don't seem to work very well at all. I (briefly)
worked with someone who passed themself off as an engineer. This guy
told his employer (at the interview) that he could put 20kHz audio
through the phone system using a 100MHz carrier (FM). They belived him.
I also know someone who spent 30k $ on a web site and can't even get a
tech on the phone to take care of 'problems'.
-- 
An Engineers Resume:
http://www.cyburban.com/~brown