What should be the first professional degree in engineering ?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>According to the IEEE's newsletter, The Institute, the IEEE is now considering joining other professional engineering societies and the National Academy of Engineering to recommend that the master's degree (M.S. or M.Eng.) become the minimum requirement for entry-level jobs in engineering in lieu of the B.S. That means the typical number of years of college education for an entry-level engineer would be increased from the current four years to five years at least. What do you think of that proposal ?</p>

<p>PS: Note that the Institute's article has a few factual errors concerning engineering education overseas, including referring erroneously to the new European 3+2+3 (B/M/D) system as "3+2+2".</p>

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<p>I know ASCE has been talking about that for a while too. Personally I believe that the major driving force behind this movement is not increasing the quality of work, but rather increasing the prestige of the profession so that it's comparable with that of law and medicine. I don't know how this would be enforced though; if employers can hire people now with just a bachelor's degree, why won't they do this in the future in spite of what the professional societies suggest? These organizations have no power to enforce their recommendations unless there's some government intervention, which I don't see happening. </p>

<p>Hmm... I just read the article and they make no mention of it being a requirement for entry level jobs. From what I read years ago about ASCE, they were suggesting a MS be the minimum requirement for licensure, which CAN be enforced with the proper legislation from the government. The problem is most non-civil engineers never pursue licensure, so I can only see a requirement for a MS being relatively successful with the civil engineering profession.</p>

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<p>The article defines a "first professional degree" as " * the customary degree needed for the practice of engineering *". I understand that to mean the requirement for an entry-level job, not necessarily for licensure. However, even if the M.S or M.Eng. were required by law for licensing purposes only, I believe the tendency would be for all top-ranked engineering schools to offer an integrated 5-year joint B.S/M.S. degree as their standard degree. </p>

<p>Just as a comparison, something similar happened in the UK a few years ago when the professional societies required an MEng as the minimum requirement to become a "chartered engineer" (British equivalent to a P.E. in the US). As a result, top universities like Cambridge or Oxford no longer offer the older BEng degree now. At Imperial College London, the BEng is still offered, but virtually all students now opt for the extended MEng program. Of course, a major difference is that it's possible in the UK to obtain a BEng in 3 years only and an MEng in 4 years only, basically because British High Schools have an additional year (13th grade), which covers the equivalent of college freshman calculus and physics in the US, and British students, unlike their U.S. counterparts, do not have "general education" requirements in college and concentrate from day one solely on their majors.</p>

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<p>It'll never happen in the US, because the market forces dominate any self-serving prestige handed down from on high by professional societies. It simply isn't economical to have all engineers trained to that level. Not in the US. and That's why it won't happen.</p>

5

<p>Well, it happened in pharmacy. It was thought that more education was needed to keep up with the standards of practice. The five year BSPharm degree was the standard minimum to be eligible to take the licensing exam and practice. Some students then went on to get a PharmD (clinically oriented degree) or a PhD in some pharmacy area (academic research degree in medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics, pharmacognosy, pharmacology, etc). Now, the six year PharmD is the entry level degree offered. I don't really think the PharmD has helped too much salary-wise since it is now the minimum degree and the older BSPharm people are sort of "grandfathered in" and continue to practice with the five-year degree. Pay is the same for each and depends on years of experience. Does the average pharmacist need the six-year PharmD to do the job. No. But don't think that the colleges and professional societies weren't in there together lobbying for the PharmD degree. Whether you respect your pharmacist more now with a PharmD than you did ten years ago with a BSPharm is up for debate, I guess.</p>

<p>It could certainly happen in engineering too.</p>

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<p>
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It'll never happen in the US, because the market forces dominate any self-serving prestige handed down from on high by professional societies. It simply isn't economical to have all engineers trained to that level. Not in the US. and That's why it won't happen.

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</p>

<p>As lkf725 stated, it happened in pharmacy. </p>

<p>It also happened in law. Back in the old days, you didn't need a law degree to practice law. Heck, you often times didn't even need a bachelor's degree. All you usually needed to do was simply pass an exam. That's why you see many of the US Presidents who were formerly practicing lawyers but who never graduated from law school (or sometimes even college). For example, Abraham Lincoln not only never went to law school or even college, he barely had any formal schooling of any sort; Lincoln was mostly self-educated. Nevertheless he became a practicing lawyer in Illinois. Similarly, Calvin Coolidge never went to law school, instead obtaining his right to practice law through an apprenticeship with a law firm. It was only later that the ABA instituted a policy to require most lawyers to actually graduate from law school before they could practice {Yet even so, there are still certain states, notably California, that to this day, still offer a method to practice without actually graduating from law school.} </p>

<p>I believe the same thing happened in medicine. In the old days, the medical education necessary to enter medical practice was not as lengthy as it is today. For example, Walter Reed obtained his MD at age 18 after just spending 2 years at the University of Virginia (and having never obtained a bachelor's). After that, he then studied at NYU for a year and obtained a 2nd MD. Can you imagine today trying to earn an MD in just one year, or earn 2 MD's in a total of 3 years, all without never even having a bachelor's degree? </p>

<p>The point is, US professional standards for licensiture can and have been upgraded over time. It is more taxing to become a lawyer, physician, or pharmacist today than it was in the past. I see no reason why this couldn't also happen in engineering.</p>

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<p>I was recently at an ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education) conference and there was a special session on this topic. It seems like we are moving closer to having the master's degree be a requirement for the license but there is still some opposition within the educational community.</p>

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<p>Eh, not many non-CivilE's get the PE anyways. Not really a huge deal.</p>

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<p>If you're planning to become a Civil Engineer, and are in college right now, this is already a real issue.</p>

<p>A few years ago, ASCE already endorsed the MS as the prerequisite for PE licensure. More recently, NCEES, the national organization of state engineering boards, recently issued a formal recommendation (through their "Model Law" for licensure") that state licensing boards adopt the MS (or equivalent) as the new educational standard, instead of the current ABET-accredited BS. The target date for adoption of this change is 2015, which is only eight years away. </p>

<p>If you are in school today, you could be eight years away from graduating with a BS and getting enough work experience to qualify for the PE exam. But if your state board does adopt the NCEES "Model Law" before then, then your BS may not be enough to qualify you for licensure. Since most Civil PEs need a license to practice, this is obviously a concern. </p>

<p>If the NCEES recommendations are accepted by state boards -- and ultimately, this decision has to be made by state governments, not NCEES -- then the MS will effectively become the first professional degree in Civil Engineering over the next decade or so.</p>

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<p>
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As lkf725 stated, it happened in pharmacy.

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[quote]
It also happened in law.

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[quote]
I believe the same thing happened in medicine.

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And for another, even more relevant example, consider this: it's happening right now in architecture. </p>

<p>Historically, the first professional degree in architecture was the 5-year, NAAB-accredited B.Arch. You can still get the B.Arch. at many schools, but now there's an NAAB-accredited alternative: the M.Arch. </p>

<p>The M.Arch. route takes longer, but gives you far more flexibility in your studies. The M.Arch. route allows you to major in absolutely anything as an undergraduate -- math, French, accounting, ceramics -- whatever. Then you go to grad school, and get an professional M.Arch. degree in 2-3 years. </p>

<p>So a liberal arts B.A. becomes a perfectly valid route for entering the field. You don't have to commit to a professional career track as a freshman or sophomore, and you don't have to spend your undergraduate years focused on technical study. This opens up the field to a much broader range of people.</p>

<p>Furthermore, a lot of prestigious, research-oriented universities -- including Berkeley, UCLA, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Michigan, Illinois -- have embraced the M.Arch. route. They don't offer the B.Arch. anymore; they may offer "light" non-accredited degrees in Architectural Studies, but not true professional degrees. The professional B.Arch. is becoming associated with less prestigious, more trade-oriented schools. In the California public system, for example, the UC schools only offer the M.Arch. The B.Arch. is left to the Cal Polys.</p>

<p>Implications for engineering:</p>

<p>(1) Even if the MS is not required as a first professional degree for engineers, the liberal arts degree plus engineering MS may become an increasingly popular alternative to the engineering BS. Graduate engineering programs will increasingly be designed to accomodate people with undergraduate science, math, and even humanities degrees. This is exactly what law schools, medical schools, and architecture schools already do. </p>

<p>(2) The top schools may decide that they prefer the liberal arts + professional MS route over the traditional professional BS route. Some prestigous schools (e.g. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth) already offer "light", non-accredited engineering B.A. degrees, as an alternative to the traditional ABET B.S. They may be quite happy to shift the accredited professional training to the graduate level, and leave the professional B.S. to less prestigious institutions. This is what is happening in architecture.</p>

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<p>Hmmm... I wonder how many engineers are employed in America? It seems like if the opportunity cost of going into engineering increases (more time in college, more debt, etc.) the number of people doing so should decrease... so if there's a surplus of workforce, by all means, let's balance it out a bit. But what would the point of arbitrarily changing the standard be? It's not a good idea, and I have faith that our system doesn't do stupid things...</p>

<p>I acknowledge the fact that a higher degree is the standard for medicine and law, pharmacy and maybe even architecture... I don't think arbitrarily changing things is a good idea. If it isn't broke, don't fix it, right? Does industry complain about low-quality engineers? Do they complain about having too many fully qualified engineers? If so, as before, by all means let things change. But if professional societies and academics are simply extending their fantasies to the free market, things might turn out worse than one may suspect. That's all I'm saying.</p>

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<p>And, btw, if it happened in pharmacy, for example, I suspect it happened primarily because market forces caused it. I doubt that pharmacists got together and said "let's make pharmacy a more prestigious field!"... but if they did, it would be interesting to estimate changes in consumer/producer surplus.</p>

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<p>
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And, btw, if it happened in pharmacy, for example, I suspect it happened primarily because market forces caused it

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<p>Uh, exactly what sort of market forces would you be referring to? See below. </p>

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I doubt that pharmacists got together and said "let's make pharmacy a more prestigious field!"...

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<p>They didn't get together to decide to make the field 'more prestigious' per se, but they probably did decide to make the field 'more professional' (however you wish to interpret the term). This is akin to the founding of the ABA in 1878 to upgrade the professional standards of lawyers. It's not as if the law profession didn't exist in the US before the ABA was founded. Far from it - many of the most important people in early American history, including many Presidents of the United States, were lawyers. The ABA was formed to professionalize the practice of law. Over time, the ABA was able to enact the upgrading of higher educational standards. But certainly I can see no market reason for the ABA to have been formed. The ABA was created to serve primarily political and social goals, not really to serve economic goals. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.abanet.org/about/history.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.abanet.org/about/history.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The same could be said for all professional societies. I can think of few professional societies that were formed strictly because of market pressure. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Hmmm... I wonder how many engineers are employed in America? It seems like if the opportunity cost of going into engineering increases (more time in college, more debt, etc.) the number of people doing so should decrease... so if there's a surplus of workforce, by all means, let's balance it out a bit. But what would the point of arbitrarily changing the standard be? It's not a good idea, and I have faith that our system doesn't do stupid things...

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<p>I would argue that the point of changing the standard in engineering would be the same point in changing the standard for law, medicine, pharmacy, and architecture. Why did those professions change? </p>

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If it isn't broke, don't fix it, right?

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</p>

<p>Well, that begs the question of why pharmacy and architecture are changing right now. Is there evidence that those 2 professions were 'broke'? If not, then why are they being 'fixed'? Nevertheless, whether we like it or not, they are being 'fixed'. </p>

<p>
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Does industry complain about low-quality engineers? Do they complain about having too many fully qualified engineers?

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<p>Regarding your latter question, why would the industry ever complain about having too many fully qualified engineers? Industry *loves * having too many fully qualified people of any kind, as it just means that they can pay those people less. After all, economics would dictate that a large supply would result in lower prices. </p>

<p>
[quote]
But if professional societies and academics are simply extending their fantasies to the free market, things might turn out worse than one may suspect.

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</p>

<p>The major structural problem with economics is that the discipline presumes that markets are always, or at least usually perfectly free and competitive. In fact, the notion of a perfectly free and competitive market is basically a theoretical construct that has never been completely realized in reality. In particular, every market is characterized with information inefficiencies. As Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz once said: "whenever information is imperfect - that is, always - markets are inefficient..." </p>

<p>The truth of the matter is that labor markets, even more so than most markets, are riven with information imperfections, and in particular with asymmetric information. Employer have great difficulty in assessing the quality/productivity of a particular employee before he is hired. Such a problem is even more acute when you're talking about "professional service" jobs like law, medicine, pharmacy, architecture, and (probably) engineering where it is difficult to determine quality even after having hired the employee and seen the work produced. At least with a factory worker, you can measure how many widgets he produces and hence deduce his productivity (although even that is fraught with difficulty, because perhaps he is producing a lot by wearing out his machine and tools). Is there any metric that would let you determine who are the "good" doctors? Or the "good" engineers? Not really. Engineering services, like physician's services or attorney's services, are difficult to assess. </p>

<p>That illustrates the inherent problem of information issues in labor markets, particularly in the professional services ranks. You don't really know what you're buying. Perfectly free markets require perfect information - that you know exactly what you are buying all the time, with zero uncertainty. Yet markets never have perfect information, and labor markets in particular, are riven with information imperfections.</p>

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<p>Licensure is one way to assure a certain degree of proficiency in potential employees. Law, architecture, and medical fields have licensure exams, maybe engineering will go this way too. Maybe some day the PE or some other exam will be required rather than optional. Of course, some incompetent idiots manage to pass these exams, but it is one way to monitor the quality of individuals within a profession.</p>

<p>On a different topic: I think one of the reasons the time to get some of these degrees is lengthening is the addition of more classes on either end of the educational process. There are more prerequisites to get into some programs, and more professional work required on the other end. You simply can't fit all of these "needed" things into four (or five or six) years.</p>

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<p>I'll tell you what, sakky. If it ever happens, I'll buy you a coke. But if it happens and the economy goes to hell, you buy me a coke.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
However, even if the M.S or M.Eng. were required by law for licensing purposes only, I believe the tendency would be for all top-ranked engineering schools to offer an integrated 5-year joint B.S/M.S. degree as their standard degree.

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It doesn't really even have to be an integrated program. More and more schools are offering master's degrees in one year with a non-thesis option; all 6 programs which I had applied to could be completed in 2 semesters. To sit for the PE exam, you typically need about 4 years of work experience, so there's no rush to get the MS right after the BS or BEng. I can see more and more companies paying for their employees MS degrees in the future if they take classes in the evening. That's probably going to mean a significant jump in enrollment for colleges in urban areas, and perhaps in online MS programs as well. Take one or two courses a semester and by the time you get your MS , you'd have just enough experience to sit for the PE exam.</p>

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<p>Might add that the same thing has happened in accounting so I'm sure similar interest will be pushing it within the engineering discipline. </p>

<p>A few years back one got a BS in Accounting and passed CPA exams and was a CPA. Now most states have laws that require 150 hours of college (basically 5 years) in order to get a CPA license. </p>

<p>It is very clear that the educational and accounting profession drove this change to help keep students in school another year and to reduce the numbers who could qualify to become a CPA. Just like was mentioned about law, pharmacy, medicine.</p>

18

<p>OK, so medicine, law, accounting, architecture, and pharmacy have all moved away from the 4-year bachelor's as the first professional degree.</p>

<p>Let's put it another way. In what professional fields -- other than engineering -- is a 4-year bachelor's still accepted as the first professional degree ?</p>

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<p>You can still be a nurse or a teacher with a 4-year degree. But both of those are (or have been) professions that have seen a shortage of members. I think you can also still be a dietitian with a BS. I agree that just about every other profession I can think of has moved to requiring >4 years education as well as licensure. You can add other medical fields to that list, such as dentist, veterinarian, occupational therapist and physical therapist. And of course, the ubiquitous MBA is pretty much standard for any business management careers these days.</p>

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<p>"But both of those are (or have been) professions that have seen a shortage of members."</p>

<p>That's one of the few good reasons I can see for increasing minimum requirements for professions... to reduce the number of people trying to get into said profession. So that makes a lot of sense to me.</p>