Quite possibly and explains the draw for them to go work in the US.
An extreme example is Sundar Pitchai who is a metallurgical engineer. He now runs Google. I am not sure if he did a day of work as a metallurgical engineer.
I doubt that they are referring to only licensed engineers. The APEO regulates all engineering degree granting programs in Ontario.
They know that few people bother with P.Eng these days.
In my day, to get a P.Eng, it was your degree + one ethics exam to get a P.Eng and useful for signing passport applications and getting some discounts. Some large companies like utilities paid a small bonus for this.
1000%. Should be about 5-6 years. Open up more med schools and lots of problems get solved. We have more people, we need more doctors. Open up more residencies as well. Will get worse as boomers age. Sadly, there are many who would love to attend med school and can’t get in.
I’ve noticed a huge surge in PA’s and nurse practitioners over the last 10 years. It’s not an MD but I’m sure cost and time factored into these folks deciding on that path rather than an MD.
Now in addition to that you need 4 years of relevant work experience.
One of my brothers has a PE , he’s mechanical engineer, even though he didn’t need to, it’s required a lot more because he bragged about it. He had to take some kind of test. He’s the smartest one in my family.
That could explain why the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers says that “only 31 per cent of employed people surveyed in 2006 with engineering degrees worked as engineers. This was the lowest match rate of all the regulated professions the survey compared” (emphasis added). Since the OSPE refers to regulated professions, that suggests that the numerator is those working with Professional Engineer license, while the denominator is all of those with engineering degrees, which may include those doing engineering work but without the requirement of Professional Engineer licensing.
It also looks like engineering organizations in Canada want the term “engineer” to be synonymous with “licensed Professional Engineer”, so they would not consider someone doing engineering work where the license is not required to be an “engineer”.
So it looks like the actual interpretation is that “31% of those with engineering degrees in Ontario are working as licensed Professional Engineers.”
This is closer to how it works in the US. One needs the degree, to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering exam (any engineering graduate should have the knowledge to pass it), get 4 years experience, then take the PE exam in their field, which includes an ethics component.
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Switching gears for a moment (not trying to derail the ongoing discussions of various careers) back to the general topic of how kids choose their majors…
One point I haven’t seen mentioned on this thread is how experiences with subjects in high school can be very misleading, and can heavily affect students’ college major choices.
For example, a history class: one big textbook with page after page of “this political entity did this here on this date; that war happened there on that date; memorize and regurgitate”. 
No reading of primary sources, little analysis of why/how events unfolded, scant discussion of the 99% of humanity that weren’t kings and presidents, and so on.
I’m sure a similar analogy could be made for every subject. This adds another layer to the task of providing kids with as much information as possible so they can make informed decisions.
This isn’t the problem. More medical schools are opening every year and there are more than enough residency positions to accommodate them.
The problem is there aren’t enough clinical training sites for med students and every time a new school opens, turf wars break out over the limited numbers of clinical sites. For example, Dartmouth exports some of their med students all the way to CA to do some of their clinical rotations --a fact the UCSF and UCD have bitterly complained about. (Dartmouth paid the hosting hospitals a higher user fee than the closer by med schools.) Part of the reason the Cal Northstate med school is about to be de-accredited is because they can’t find enough clinical training slots for their students. Philadelphia area med schools send student all over PA, NJ, DE, NY and even as far away as OH and WV in some cases for clinical rotations.
And there is a pretty radical new approach to med school being seriously considered. Since the first 2 years of med school are all classroom based and there are plentiful recorded lectures and other study material available, the LCME is considering just eliminating the MCAT and the first 2 med school altogether. Med school hopefuls would instead self-study (or take coursework or prep classes on their own), then sit for the STEP 1 and 2CK exams. Those who pass would then be interviewed for clinical training positions and start med school as what are now MS3s.
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Is that a function of the degree or the type of students getting into engineering at these schools (IITs)?
My friend’s kid who is in a top engineering school was surprised to find that the kids had string ensembles, comedy troupes, and did all sorts of things that blew apart the stereotype of the pallid D&D engineering students.
I suspect these kids were also top English students, history students, music students as well.
So I’m not surprised that employers may treat some engineering graduates like liberal arts grads from a top school. Same kind of kid in the end.
Hah! Well, I wonder who the people are at the APEO these days. The graduates who are not working in US at FAANGs.
Employers like to hire them because they cost less than a doctor.
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Seems like that could incentivize colleges to offer a specialization of the biology major or a “biomedical sciences” major where the upper division course work is what is currently MS1 and MS2 course work in preparation for the STEP 1 and 2CK exams. If enough colleges did that, that could substantially reduce educational costs to become a physician (two fewer years, especially since those are expensive MS1 and MS2 years).
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At the end of the day most big employers are just looking for raw iq. And in the case of the iit, there is a clean system of ascertaining raw analytical iq across a 1.3bn sized country.
At the top engineering schools in the US, the kids I am sure are extremely broadly talented. It is an urban myth that the STEM kids are lacking in “critical thinking” skills. Even in high school the strongest kids gravitate towards STEM, but they have interests in many other things – music, philosophy, history etc. Math skills are strongly correlated with music skills by the way. @lettiriggi said above that history is taught in a rote manner. The strongest kids in a high school will go and research primary source material to write a history essay – even if they were STEM kids. It is just rigor. I’ve seen this happen. They go and read original research papers in the sciences from time to time.
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I found this out the 1st week of engineering school.
Getting back to the topic of thread, in view of the latest posts, I think that if one has a motivated, passionate, driven kid in whatever field who knows what it costs to sustain a life in chosen area, then no need to push at all.
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Well, hopefully it’s not! Unfortunately it was in my case. And I was a top student at a top academic high school in my area. Hopefully things have improved.
The point I was trying to make is that if a student’s only exposure leads them to perceive a subject is dry and boring, they have less incentive to go and seek out further intellectual depth. “Gee, that was utterly uninspiring; let me investigate further.”
I suppose there are students that will always go above and beyond in every subject. But there are probably just as many that would seek intellectual stimulation elsewhere.
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Intriguing and I like it! Could this lead to a less diverse pool of physicians?