<p>It’s not engineering unless you use microsoft excel.</p>
<p>That’s accounting.</p>
<p>Well. First of all, a person who has a BA/BS / MS or PH D are not a real engineer but the first thing in order to be a real engineer is getting a degree in engineering. You cannot sign any engineering documents if you don’t pass the P.E exams. but anyway I think most of Software engineering and ECE don’t need to get the P.E.
[Engineer</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer]Engineer”>Engineer - Wikipedia)
In the United States engineering certification is carried out by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. Professional engineers are required to pass a basic Fundamendals of Engineering (FE) examination, complete a specified number of years of working in the field, and then pass a rigorous and thorough Professional Engineering (PE) examination.</p>
<p>In the United States, registration or licensure of Professional Engineers is performed by the individual states. Each registration or license is valid only in the state in which it is granted. Many Professional Engineers maintain licenses in several states for this reason, and comity between states can make it easy to obtain a license in one state based on licensure in another state without going through the full application process.[3] The licensing procedure varies but the general process is:[4]</p>
<ol>
<li>Graduate with a degree from an accredited four-year university program in engineering.</li>
<li>Complete a standard Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) written examination, which tests applicants on breadth of understanding of basic engineering principles, and optionally some elements of an engineering specialty. Completion of the first two steps typically qualifies for certification in the U.S. as an Engineer-In-Training (EIT), sometimes also called an Engineer Intern (EI).[5]</li>
<li>Accumulate a certain amount of engineering experience typically under the supervision of a P.E. In most states the requirement is four years, but in others the requirement is lower.</li>
<li>Complete a written Principles and Practice in Engineering (‘PE’) examination, testing the applicant’s knowledge and skills in a chosen engineering discipline (mechanical, electrical, civil, for example), as well as engineering ethics.</li>
</ol>
<p>Degree requirements in the United States are evolving. Effective 1 January 2015, the NCEES model will require a minimum of a master of science degree in engineering or a bachelor of science degree with additional 30 credits of equivalent graduate level work.[6]. This has received strong support from civil engineers.[7][8]</p>
<p>There is a fairly large range in exam pass rates for these exams (FE and PE), but the pass rate for repeat test takers is significantly lower.[9]</p>
<p>In a few states it is still possible for an individual to bypass Step 1, and apply to take the registration examinations as long as a P.E. will sponsor the applicant, and work experience can be substituted for academic experience. The years of experience may also vary; for instance, in California it is possible to take a Principles and Practice in Engineering examination with only two years of experience after a bachelor’s degree, or one year of experience after graduate school. In Nevada, college graduates are eligible to take the Principles and Practice exam immediately after graduation and passing the EIT, before acquiring the required experience. [2] Some states also have state-specific examinations, most notably California where there is a state-specific structural engineering exam and two additional exams in land surveying and earthquake engineering for civil engineering candidates.</p>
<p>Some states issue generic Professional Engineering licenses. Others, known as “discipline states”, issue licenses for specific disciplines of engineering, such as Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. In all cases, however, engineers are ethically required to limit their practice to their area of competency, which is usually a small portion of a discipline. While licensing boards do not often enforce this limitation, it can be a factor in negligence lawsuits.</p>
<p>According to the engineers in my family (most DO have the PE), this is not REQUIRED by employers of engineers unless the engineers are going to be doing work in the public sector (where a PE stamp is almost always required) OR will be the engineer of record (in other words…stamping the drawings) at the place of employment. There are MANY engineers working AS engineers who don’t have a PE. </p>
<p>BUT my engineering family says NO ONE should be calling themselves an “engineer” until they have completed their engineering degree. While a student…they are simply that…a STUDENT. It doesn’t matter if they have a job working “in the field”…they still should not be called “engineers” as they have not completed their schooling.</p>
<p>DD will be entering her senior year as an engineering major. She does NOT call herself an “engineer”…YET.</p>
<p>Well, if the person has an actual job working as an engineer… then it becomes a gray area. If you’re doing engineering work, and doing it well enough to not get fired for a few years, then maybe you’re already an engineer. Huh.</p>
<p>Seriously, though, if it’s just a co-op or a returning internship thing, I would be wary of saying that qualifies someone as being an engineer. Then again, if someone has been working part-time or full-time since they enrolled, I would have to say in that case, yes, they are probably engineers.</p>
<p>Strange as it sounds, not everybody needs a degree before they start working. Especially in computers… with the right set of circumstances, one could start working under the title “software engineer” part time after high school. That’s pushing the envelope of what I would call “engineer”, but if somebody wanted to call themselves that with those credentials, I’d probably allow it, especially if they were also enrolled in college to get an engineering degree.</p>
<p>Who cares what people choose to call themselves during undergrad? Why does that even matter? I could care less if someone called themselves an engineer or a scientist or the president while they were going through undergrad, it doesn’t affect me at all.</p>
<p>Well, some people are interested in questions like that. I’m fascinated by questions of technicalities. I lead a quite uninteresting life.</p>
<p>lol Auburn despite the futility of these debates you keep on weighing in…you must be bored ;).</p>
<p>A sad reflection perhaps, but then again you have twice as many posts as me and have been here 4 years to my 6 months.</p>
<p>Although my title was a Software Engineer, I wrote code, and I definitely didn’t consider myself an engineer. I was a Developer or Programmer, working on a large engineering project. </p>
<p>However, I used to work in unison with Systems and Mechanical Engineers, I do consider them engineers.</p>