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<p>That is what I recall from the Texas Board–I’ll look for it somewhere but I think you can also get a waiver if you have 10-12 years of experience.</p>
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<p>I believe it’s 20 years for a total waiver, plus approximately an act of god. Don’t bank on it.</p>
<p>Also, you have to have eight years of experience in addition to a nonaccredited engineering degree in order to apply to take the exam in the state of Texas. The requirements are similar for other states.</p>
<p>If you had to choose between accredidation or not, it would probably be a good idea to go with the program/school that is accredited.</p>
<p>We simply don’t want to have too many PE’s and oversaturate the market. There are too many of them already as is. However, there is always a way. I think in CA you just need to put in 4 more years of experience to be elligible for PE w/o ABET-accredited degree.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I believe that Prof. Williamson would still be paid lots of money for his experience and speciality, even w/o a PE, because in the end the market decides.</p>
<p>Just want to correct a bit of misinformation stated above. Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Engineering program is indeed ABET accredited.</p>
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<p>First, you only need one year of post-grad-school qualifying experience to take the exam in California anyhow, and the people who really need PEs are structurals and civils, and with seismic conditions most engineers get their masters anyhow, so if you’re correct, that’s still four additional years of experience beyond typical experience level–about on par with the other states’ requirements.</p>
<p>But, you might be incorrect. You have to have an EIT in order to get your PE. In order to get your EIT, you need to either have had three years of education in an ABET-accredited degree program OR you have to have had three years of work experience in engineering. So, right off the bat, you have to have three years of experience if you don’t have an ABET degree. Then, there’s a blanket six-year qualifying experience requirement. You get four years of credit for an ABET-accredited BS degree, and only two years of credit for a non-ABET engineering BS degree. I think that’s where you’re getting your four-year number from, BUT I’m not sure whether you can count years towards BOTH your EIT AND your PE qualifying experience at the same time. I also think the answer might vary based upon who at the licensure board you actually ask, hence the “might be wrong”. You might be right, but four years is still a long time to sit around waiting for your PE.</p>
<p>Secondly, I want to know where you’re getting your opinion that the market is oversaturated with PEs. Or with engineers in fields that require PEs, in general. The <em>lawyer</em> market is saturated. The <em>engineer</em> market, particularly in PE-required fields, really is not.</p>
<p>That exemption sounds like something they just threw in so they can reserve the right to give a license to whoever they want as quickly as possible. It’s probably not for your average engineer, but for some high-profile engineer or some very specialized engineer from another state/country. </p>
<p>It just doesn’t sound like something that can be used for an everyday engineer without an immense uproar from the professional and political community.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry, I meant the market is oversaturated with civils and structurals b/c the salary is way way down that wwhat it used to be. This oversaturation of civils increase the chance of oversaturation of PEs, I would think?</p>
<p>I am a practicing civil engineer with a PE license in 2 states (IL and AZ) – and yes, my BS is from a ABET-accredited program. (I also have Master of Engineering and MBA degrees.) </p>
<p>In 35 years of engineering, I have never seen any evidence of “oversaturation” of civil engineers OR of PEs. On the contrary, it is often difficult to fill engineering positions because not enough Americans go into engineering and there aren’t enough work visas available to bring in qualified non-citizens.</p>
<p>I never heard of an oversaturation of civil engineers; however, I’ve heard of there not being enough civil engineers. </p>
<p>This is also the first time I’ve heard of salaries being lower than what it used to be in any field, even when controlling for inflation.</p>
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<p>I think it’s a myth.</p>
<p>This year Cal Poly Pomona graduated 300 civils. You could tell it to majority of them that haven’t found any work right now, or to the ones that have to take offers lower than last year median salary. This is according to my sister.</p>
<p>Where she just got accepted, the sr. civil said that for her CE position, there were 30 CE applicants for 1… ONE CE entry level. She had to go through 4 panel interviews before landing that one.</p>
<p>The city of LA went out to recruiting this year and there is a 10:1 ratio of applicants vs new hires. Last year was better, because we had the budget.</p>
<p>I also know personally people that have their PEs getting axed left and right… I know it’s only a matter of time until they get another job, but still…</p>
<p>It is also one of the issue we talk about here at ASCE MLAB YMF.
So I honestly don’t know how one could say it’s not oversaturated.</p>
<p>It’s quite possible that’s localized. The Washington Post had an article saying the average starting salary of civil engineers this year is up 6.4% from last year (<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072202709.html)%5B/url%5D”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/22/AR2008072202709.html)</a>. I just got a full-time position this year and even got a signing bonus to go along with my offer. Everybody that I knew at my undergrad and grad school that made a half-decent effort had a job lined up months before graduation easily. Many hiring managers complain about the lack of qualified engineers. </p>
<p>New York City just spent $4 million to hire engineers to do a study regarding construction safety. </p>
<p>People taking offers that are lower than last year’s median salary should be expected at all schools everywhere. Heck, half the people last year got offers less than the median salary. You can’t expect the worst offer this year to be better than the 50th% offer last year. </p>
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<p>I don’t know how you’re defining “applicants” but if you count everyone that just throws a resume into the box, I don’t doubt you, but I think that’s the norm. Also, people tend to apply to many many jobs, which would explain the high ratio. It’s not uncommon for someone to send their resume to dozens of companies. </p>
<p>I’m sure the market was better last year than this with the residential crisis we have now. I’m not surprised if people working for production home builders like Pulte get laid off, but it’s not a long-term trend. The world population keeps on growing, which means there will be a greater demand for civil engineers to design and build housing and infrastructure. </p>
<p>What makes me believe this is a localized issue is that I have never heard about this issue being raised from national ASCE, nor have I seen any news articles even hinting at this.</p>
<p>rheidzan, I would not attribute your seeming lack of jobs and/or lower salaries to an oversaturation of engineers, I think the main cause is the current state of the economy. This problem is certainly not specific to engineers. There have been several recent articles in the press about how recent college graduates – in many different fields – are having a much harder time finding jobs this year than students in past years did.</p>
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Allow me to clarify. Qualified candidates that we interviewed. The same with my sister’s case.</p>
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This is true.</p>
<p>The reason why I said the current salary trend has been going down is 10 years ago the City of LA would start fresh CE graduates at 48k (according to my boss). Assuming COLA/inflation of 3% per year (which I think is way too low), 2 years ago they should’ve started fresh CE graduates at 60k, which was not the case. They started at 55k instead.
Remember, 2 years ago was the peak of the housing bubble, that no one expected it would burst soon, and salary was that low.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it might be true that this problem is localized.</p>
<p>it’ll go back up when the economy comes back. There will be demand for engineers. There IS demand for engineers, both in civil and structural. I underwent a job search last October and things were fine.</p>
<p>I’m certain what you’re seeing is localized.</p>
<p>I’m actually fairly skeptical of what you say because we had a dreadful time recruiting structurals in my old office in LA. I left, but they’re still searching like crazy for more help.</p>
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<p>The irony is that I keep hearing numerous engineering firms complain that they can’t ‘find’ enough engineers, but on the other hand, they aren’t willing to take the next logical step, which is to simply pay more, and/or to offer better career paths (i.e. faster paths to management for those who want it, more training and career development, larger equity stakes in the companies, etc.) </p>
<p>Consider what would happen if companies paid $150k to start for all engineers. The number of engineers would jump for two reasons. Firstly many (probably most) of the engineering graduates who now decide to enter other careers rather than engineering, such as law, medicine, consulting, Ibanking, etc. - would stay in engineering. Hence, you would have an immediate jump in the supply of engineers. </p>
<p>The long-term supply effects would be even larger, as many more people would now be drawn to majoring in engineering in the first place. Many students who try out engineering but then switch to another major because they don’t find engineering to be interesting enough (but who were still receiving passing grades in engineering) would be incentivized to stick with it for big payout at the end. More importantly, you would be encouraging people to try to major in engineering who would otherwise never try at all and while surely some of them won’t be able to complete the engineering major (i.e. they get weeded out), some of them will be able to complete it. </p>
<p>I can see two possible objections which I will knock down right now. #1 - some of you may be thinking that it’s simply ridiculous to be paying people $150k right out of undergrad. My response to that is, well, that’s what the investment banks, hedge funds, and private equity firms are doing right now. They obviously didn’t get any memo admonishing them about ‘ridiculous’ starting pay. Coincidentally (actually, not coincidentally at all), these firms never seem to complain that they can’t ‘find’ enough qualified people. Heck, many of these firms, i.e. private equity firms, deliberately conceal themselves from the public (for example, not even publishing their real office addresses, having their employees remain quiet about who they work for) lest they become deluged by job-seekers. </p>
<p>The second objection is that by boosting pay, engineering firms would merely be attracting people who are only interested in the money but who aren’t interested in the job itself. My rebuttal to that is, first off, that’s happening already. Right now, there are people who are attracted to engineering just because of the relatively high starting pay. Furthermore, the ‘high pay’ lever is one that is being pulled by numerous other industries (i.e., again, law, consulting, banking, etc.), which means that those industries have evidently figured out a way to deal with the people who are only interested in the money. </p>
<p>But more importantly, pay is not the only lever you can pull. Like I said above, you can also improve working conditions. For example, why not offer reasonable, family-friendly work hours with flex-time, with excellent career development and training, with numerous opportunities to work on cool projects? That sort of environment not only increases the desirability of your firm to new graduates, but also increases the retention of existing employees which therefore reduces your need for hiring new graduates in the first place. In short, firms should be improving their work environments such that they can be named to, say, Fortune Magazine’s top 100 Best Companies to Work For, and other such indicators of desirability. Note that these firms are not always the highest-paying firms in their industry (for example, I know that Genentech is not even close to being the highest paying biotech/pharma), but they’ve created work environments that attract people.</p>
<p>[100</a> Best Companies to Work For 2008: Full list | FORTUNE](<a href=“http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2008/full_list/index.html]100”>100 Best Companies to Work For 2008: Full list | FORTUNE)</p>
<p>The upshot is, whenever I hear companies say that they can’t find enough qualified people or that their positions are difficult to fill or whatnot, it just reminds me of the guys I know who complain that they can’t find a girlfriend; these are the same guys who are out of shape because they never go to the gym, who never bother to learn about activities that women enjoy (i.e. dancing, Broadway shows, fashion) and who never bothered to develop conversational skills about topics that women like to talk about (i.e. most women don’t want to hear you droning on about your fantasy football team or whether Ironman could beat Batman). If you want a girlfriend, you have to do things to improve yourself so that you are more interesting and more desirable to women. Similarly, if companies want better employee candidates, they have to do things to improve working conditions such that people become more interested in working there in the first place.</p>
<p>Otherwise, what you end up having - and which is what happens today - is that companies can’t find enough interested people given its current salaries and working conditions. In other words, the real culprit is the unwillingness to improve salaries/working conditions, and to that, I have no sympathy, just like I have no sympathy for those guys who don’t want to improve themselves and are then ‘shocked’ to find that they can’t get a date.</p>
<p>How’re they going to get more money to pay their engineers when their clients will just go to the lowest bidder, Sakky? So long as a significant number of engineers are willing to accept the pay being offered, it’s going to be a tough trend to reverse.</p>
<p>My current company, on the other hand, is doing what I think might need to happen… They’re increasing pay, they’re offering a completely unprecedented amount of in-house training to their employees, the company is privately owned by employees who’ve been there for at least ten years… And they’re being recognized for these things, too. This is the company that’s won “Best Structural Engineering Firm to Work For” three years running. Hopefully, others will continue to try to figure out why we’re attracting great engineers and keeping them around.</p>
<p>TOTALLY agree with EVERYTHING you said!!! Could NOT Have been said better.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who graduated from Berkeley w/ his BS in finance 2 years ago is getting 100k doing I/B at a local union bank. The pay is ridiculous, and the work hour is more or less the same as us. No way in CE can you get 100k within 2 years.</p>
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<p>It can. Making it tougher to get a PE would be one way.</p>
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<p>The change has to come from above the company level as aibarr suggested. My former company once worked a small project where the client would only pay $10,000 total, which is a ridiculously small amount considering the project was out of state and required field work. I believe we ended up having interns do 90% of the work. Kind of ridiculous… Profit margins just aren’t high enough. Top companies in my field (which is engineering-related and hires a lot of engineering majors) usually offer the best starting pay for civil engineers, but our profit margin is usually between 0.5% and 2.5% with 2.5% being rare and usually for highly complex projects. I can’t imagine how low it is for the engineering consultants on the job. </p>
<p>Working conditions differ immensely from company to company. There are the EA’s of the world at there are those at the top of the Best [insert category] Firm to Work For lists. </p>
<p>Going after engineering graduates who go into law, medicine, and finance would be tough. It’s probably easier to try to get more average engineers from average schools. Engineering is still the best money option for these grads.</p>
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I’m not sure that’s the key. All you’re going to get if you only do that is more crumbling infrastructure, more collapses, and more deaths because there will be fewer engineers around to do the jobs. What we have to do is MARKET ourselves better to both private clients and to the general public as a whole. If engineering services are viewed as a commodity, then of course pay won’t be higher. Of course clients will go with the lowest bidders. Of course the public won’t support allocating funds to rebuild our country’s infrastructure if they don’t understand how critical our services are. If you have fewer PE’s, firms will just try to force the remaining PE’s to take on extra work with the same pay since the company isn’t getting any extra revenue.</p>
<p>Nobody gives a damn how hard you worked for your PE. It’s all about marketing marketing marketing!</p>
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<p>Oh, I don’t know - maybe we can ask why the same doesn’t happen to the private equity firms and hedge funds. Why don’t their clients go to the lowest bidder? </p>
<p>Or let me put it to you this way. Google is an engineering company. It offers relatively high pay (at least for engineers). It also offers obscenely munificent benefits - i.e. free gourmet food, free concierge, free transportation, free gym, etc. etc. That is why it is the #1 ranked Best Employer to Work For as determined by Fortune Magazine. </p>
<p>Yet its real customers are not you and I, but rather are the advertisers (i.e. the firms buying all of the advertising that appears next to the search results). You don’t really hear them taking their business to the lowest bidder, even though Google’s rates are relatively high. Heck, Google continues to gain advertising market share every quarter. </p>
<p>The point is, there are many companies who have figured out how not to compete on price, but rather by selling quality and image. The Apple Ipod is not really “better” than other MP3 players out there, yet Apple can charge several times what its competitors do, and still maintain dominant market share (i.e. something like over 80% share). Some industry pundits have said that Apple’s real genius with the Ipod is figuring out how to take $50 worth of hard drive and other parts and selling it for over $200. But it works. </p>
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<p>Hey, a lot of people who want to enter Ibanking would probably work for less money (as opposed to not even getting an offer at all). But that doesn’t seem to matter, as the pay packages in Ibanking have reached stratospheric heights. Private equity and hedge funds are even worse. </p>
<p>One of the keys seems to be that you don’t just take everybody who wants to get in. You raise pay, but then you only take the very very best people who apply. This reminds me of Henry Ford’s strategy with regards to workers: he announced a doubling in wages over prevailing standards, but then hired only the very best applicants. Most people who wanted to work at Ford couldn’t get an offer. </p>
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<p>There you go. Why don’t other firms do the same?</p>