JonJon13926

Chiming in on something jrcsmom said:

I, too, live in a rural area very similar. Only a small number of people stick around here after they graduate. I've personally met a ton of people who show a blatant dislike for education. A lot of them in my family. I've heard people specifically talking about new hires at there workplace that have a college degree, and they have nothing but bad things to say about that person. Sometimes it sounds very childlike. (This goes for varied fields of work btw.) What I'm getting from it is that they're insecure about this new guy/girl coming in with an education, because they may worry that those with college degrees could replace them, especially if they end up outperforming them and the company realizes it needs to make some cuts later on.

Special Metals, here, laid off over 80 people recently. I don't know who got laid off, but from a friend whose dad works there and didn't get laid off, I heard that some of them had been working there for a long time. Considering that things like that do happen, and that the new person coming in has an education, I can see myself being insecure if I was an engineer who worked up through experience instead of an education, even if I had been there for 10 years. With that said, I don't think it's RIGHT to treat an intern or new hire that way just because you're insecure, but it's human nature to feel threatened.

IF that's why they did it. I was just speculating.

aibarr

Dude. I get this *all* the time.

A lot of it is admittedly from being a woman in engineering, but my MS from Illinois, my licensure, my fancy resume... they create friction with a lot of the people who don't have any of those things. Every single time I used to come onto a project site with my reasonably clean boots and my monitor tan, I'd encounter some sort of hostility. Sometimes it'd just be a quiet mistrust, or I'd be ignored completely, or they'd try to stump me, or they'd insist that they know better, or they just hit on me (sigh).

It took practice, but I figured out how to talk to people in a way that wouldn't be as threatening, but that would still command respect. One of the things I'd always do, though, is acknowledge their incredibly valuable wealth of field experience. In military terms, a good lieutenant always listens to his sergeant. When I could convince them that they had the other half of the key to solving this problem, and that I was absolutely going to solicit their input and treat them as colleagues, then things went a lot better.

Maybe something you could do would be to go up to that colleague of yours and say, "Hey, I know you gave me this project, but I really don't have any experience with this. I'm sure you've seen a lot of these in the field... Do you have an hour or so sometime this week so you can show me how to tackle something like this?" It'll go a long way in helping them see you as one of the 'good' engineers who is actually interested in solving problems, rather than a college guy who'll always look down on them.

Good luck!

fishymom

I find this thread interesting because my husband is a non-degree engineer by experience and my son an engineer by degree. They both work in an environment where there is a mix of both types of engineers. In my son's case, at a well known national company, he works with quite a few ex-military who are non-degree engineers, as well as a few civilians. My husband, at a smaller company, works with several degree engineers who are employed as technicians and a couple of degree engineers who work at management level positions. There are a couple of other non-degree engineers at his company working in operations.

My son has seen some conflict between the degree/non-degree engineers, mainly because of the difference in background. Most of the entry level degree engineers have very little actual experience, so their learning curve is steep. They tend to resent the non-degree guys who have lots of hands on experience. And the military guys are seen as order takers, they can do what needs to be done, but they have to be directed. The non-degree guys think the degree guys don't have any practical knowledge and only know what is taught in a book. And so it goes, lol!

My husband doesn't really see too much of this at his small company. The EE's that work as techs cycle in and out from the engineering school nearby, although there are a couple who have been there for years. The upstairs guys don't pay too much attention to the operations guys, so no real conflict but maybe a little attitude there. My husband often encounters colleagues that are surprised to learn he is non-degree, he takes it as a compliment with no resentment. And quite often, my degree engineer son will call his non-degree engineer dad to discuss a project he is working on. They are in the same industry, so makes for interesting dinner conversation for them, not so much for the rest of us.

And aibarr gives some excellent advice, you would be wise to take heed!