[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I'm a licensed professional engineer with a master's degree in my field. I probably wouldn't have even been admitted to engineering school 100 years ago. 14 posted on 04/07/2013 10:27:44 AM PDT by Alberta's Child

I think you under-appreciate how much engineering has changed in 100 years.

That is an understatement. To become a PE 100 years ago you probably would not even attend college at all. There are two ways to qualify to take Part A of the PE exam in NY - get a degree from an accredited engineering school, or work under a PE for 5 (I think it was) years. To qualify to take Part B of the PE exam, a degree wouldn’t matter - you had to have the engineering experience. So you see, you could become a PE now (or at least 30 years ago when I considered it) without going to engineering school at all. But the only way to get a PE without the engineering experience would be to become a professor in an accredited engineering school.

That traces back to the fact that when MIT was founded, engineering was considered a discipline of experience rather than study, and the idea of an engineering school was a controversial novelty. That changed after WWII, only because of things like radar - new technologies which no amount of experience would be likely to make you competent in. With radar in particular, the engineers moaned among themselves that they were reduced to plumbers for the scientists who had the math background to be able to deal with the behavior of microwaves. Professional engineers came away from that experience with a “never again” determination - and engineering school, with a heavy theoretical and mathematical course load, became the standard way to become an engineer.

That information came from

Up the Infinite Corridor: MIT and the Technical Imagination by Fred Hapgood (Feb 1994)

You would find it fascinating.

[Alberta's Child]

Great information there. I know the requirements for licensure in many states have changed considerably over the years. In my state, it’s very difficult to have your application for the exams accepted without a degree at an accredited school.