[Cvengr]

The cutting and pasting might greatly increase the ease of producing a deliverable for a particular contract, but such is not the foundation of professional engineering.

I'm up to my armpits in projects where mediocre engineers without ethic or ownership seek to churn out a deliverable without even making field verifications or to the contrary, hone a professional skill to evade cyclical review processes in hopes for milking a dry cow for modifications.

Good money won't turn a bad AE good.

Unfortunately for the profession, too many people with access to PCs, a spreadsheet, AutoCAD, and a handful of past drawings believe they have the acumen to design as professionals. Concurrently, every tradesman and his brother now believes they have the ability to design because they can afford a spreadsheet, copier, ACAD, and can knock out a plot plan or elevation or detail.

In the last 10 years, I've seen the profession slip considerably. Construction projects get knocked out today with about 10-20 cents on the dollar of actual value as compared to 20 years ago.

One advantage to this situation is that the lack of professionalism inherant in many designs today, insure job security for engineers in the future.

A disadvantage is that so much of the professions have become codified, that innovative unique productive design improvements are difficult to find today, simply because the bulk of financial obligations are directed to off-the-shelf, codified methods installed by tradesmen.

[shotgun]

Well said!! most young engineers fresh out of school are thrown in front of a computer to do either ACAD or spreadsheet work without having the foggiest idea of how to design a project. My mentor had me do my calculations and some design work by hand so I could learn when the answer the computer gave me was wrong or at the very least re-check my inputs for correct data.

When you learn on the end of a survey rod, then design from that survey, then construction stake your design, and inspect it, design flaws show right up, and thus you apply those lessons to avoid more mistakes.

Becoming a PE should be like an apprenticeship. 4 years school plus 4 years WORKING at a Professional level in the field. Sorry to say that that 4 years working has become sitting behind the computer and drawing lines or creating spreadsheets.