Back in the olden days when I went to college, the list of engineering majors was a relatively short one. You could be an EE, an ME, a CE, or a ChemE. That's certainly not the case today, as many majors are defined by the applications that they are geared toward. For example, now we have automotive engineers, aerospace engineers, biomedical engineers, and so on.
My opinion is that people morph their titles over time. For example, since I graduated from college as an EE, that's what I was at the time. But since I was employed by DEC, I must have been an automotive engineer.
To get some insight on this issue, I posed a question on our System & Product Design Engineering LinkedIn group to ask whether we, as engineers, should still classify ourselves using the older nomenclature, or whether that's passé. Here are some of the responses.
Michael Grillo thinks that the degree should define us, and I agree with his logic. "One should classify themselves by their degree followed with a description, automotive, manufacturing, and so on. To say [you] are an automotive engineer would mean [you] have a degree in automotive engineering, and that may not be the case. An automotive engineer would be someone with a concentrated study of automotive engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, or some other engineering degree."
A vote for the opposition comes from Louis Giokas. "The specialization around applications is the wrong way to go. I worked in the aerospace industry for many years and saw very few people with aerospace engineering degrees. We had functional departments which included systems engineers, controls engineers, structural engineers, thermal engineers, mechanism engineers, software engineers, power engineers, logic engineers, etc."
Another distinction comes in the areas of specialization one can maneuver to. For example, to go from being an EE to an ME would likely require going back to college. But going from an ME to an automotive or robotics engineer could be done with on-the-job training. It's also a fact that industries create disciplines, particularly as aerospace, biomedical, and automotive.
Here's a view from someone who actually holds what I would call an unorthodox degree. Lamont Hislop earned a degree in manufacturing engineering (BSME) but only worked in this specific capacity for a short time right after college.
"I've been a CAD/CAM programmer, a liaison engineer, a design engineer, a tooling engineer, a test engineer, a quality engineer, a system safety engineer, a reliability engineer, and an analysis engineer, all within the industry umbrella of aerospace. I guess you could say that I've been an aerospace engineer working in all of these specific disciplines," he said.
It appears we're not going to have a clear resolution to this issue. What's your opinion? Tell us in the comments section below, and go to our System & Product Design Engineering page on LinkedIn to get in on the next discussion.
Rich, I hope it is alright to comment on an article in which I am quoted.
I belong to the IEEE (I hope you are a member) and the various publications typically have detailed author bios at the end. There generally give the schools and degrees attained by the author. Many of the authors have advanced degrees. I am always interested in what degrees people involved in some of these activities studied. Some list Engineering as their discipline. Nothing else, just Engineering. This is mostly from other countries, so may be an artifact of the language issue. Others have very specific degrees. One I am looking at now, in a robotics article, has a BE in Mechanical Engineering (so far fairly common) and an MS in Information Engineering. That's one you don't see here very often.
Another thing I have found over the years is engineers, especially in aerospace and robotics, who have a BS in Mechanical or Electrical engineering and an MS in the other (or both). Robotics is definately a multidisciplinary field.
How you identify yourself depends upon what you are trying to accomplish and where you are are doing your identifying. Your company may want you to identify yourself in a particular way to indicate rank.
I have been through a signficant process of a job search and have altered my titles to highlight one part of my skills for a company that would use them and another set for a different type of position (e.g., Development Engineering Manager, Project Manager, Controls / Automation Engineer). My degrees simply say BSEE and MBA, which don't give the whole picture.
In fact, the degree by itself may not be all that useful. Two people graduating from the same school at the same time might have the same degree, but took drastically different electives. Ten years down the road, even people with identical degree backgrounds, might be qualified for totally different things due to work experience and continuing education, which doesn't get wrapped up in a nice package of a degree.
Jack, you put it well. All such things are helpful only for entry level positions; they can act as a key factor to get in to the first job. There after experience, skill and ability are the driving parameters for promotion and growth. Once we are in job, educational credentials are not going to be referred unless and until it mediatory for certain posts in government services.
Richard, you are right. EE, Civil, ME are the core engineering braches and the other branches are derived from this core with different nomenclatures. I had completed electronics and communication in 1996 and now I heard that they had further split the same in to different branches like communication, satellite and telecommunication etc. Another thing is they had merged some of the core subjects like electronics & mechanical to form Mechatronics.
My diploma says that I am an EE, but that was only based on the courses that I took in college. I have made it a point to continue learning, and as a result I have been able to do quite a few mechanical designs, create hydraulic and pneumatic systems that function very well, and develop a few industrial processes.
But the most fun engineering area has been in diagnostics of systems that don't function as desired or as they did when they functioned correctly. Understanding all of the varied disciplines well enough to know how they should be functioning is a requirement to understanding when they are "not functioning quite right". That sort of insight has been rewarding and entertaining as well.
But I do not wish to be called a "Service Engineer" or a "Maintenance Engineer", even all the way to the bank. Not that those titles don't deserve a lot of respect, but it is more fun to be "the man who always has the answers".
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