Roy Bowdler:
Much of our debate about how the competence descriptors differ between the two categories of Engineer, seem to ignore the fact that what we actually have is an academic hierarchy, biased greatly towards scientific analysis rather than knowledge about engineering techniques.

 

Now that's an interesting perspective. As I've always banged on about, if I'm deciding whether a 40 year old engineer is professionally competent in their role I'm pretty uninterested in what they got up to in their early 20s. (Which I would be - ref your opening comments it is remarkable that my barely scraped through first degree has honours!) BUT, and it's a big bold capital letters but, if they are taking significant significant technical decisions I do want to know that somewhere along the line they have learned how to do scientific analysis to "Masters level", or more accurately to know how to carry out a rigorous scientific methodology. You can be trained to solve problems that existed in the past, but reliably and safely solving new problems or old problems in new situations needs that level of rigour. And it's very often missing. I suppose I'm particularly aware of this given that I'm working in innovation in safety critical systems, I am constantly explaining to very experienced and skilled (and senior) engineers that "we tried it and it worked" is not a methodical argument - as one of my colleagues used to say, "yes, it worked that time, doesn't mean it will work every time".


Now, I thought 3rd edition was good on this, and I think 4th edition might be slightly better. And both (to my mind) make clear that at some level this "scientific analysis" approach is needed at all three registrations, which is good.


So I'd be very concerned if any iteration of the process defined CEng as "professional engineer with academic background" and IEng as "professional engineer with practical background", that would be of no help to anyone at all. As long as they end up at the same place who cares how they got there. What's important is that, whatever the applicants background and route, the benchmark makes clear what is needed for a particular role. The driving test treats you the same whether you had lessons from an instructor or learned from your mum. And it's interesting to reflect that whatever the technical learning background in both cases they will still have had to pick up the wider C, D and E competences from somewhere. 


Personally I'm happy that 4th edition doesn't change that (although I'm happy to change my view if someone points out something that I've missed!) There's a separate question in here, which I'm very interested in because it relates to a number of applicants I'm working with at the moment, which is how non-graduate engineers prove they hold that degree level of UK&U, but that's for a separate discussion. I don't think 4th edition makes that any easier or harder?


Thanks,


Andy

Roy Bowdler:
Much of our debate about how the competence descriptors differ between the two categories of Engineer, seem to ignore the fact that what we actually have is an academic hierarchy, biased greatly towards scientific analysis rather than knowledge about engineering techniques.

 

Now that's an interesting perspective. As I've always banged on about, if I'm deciding whether a 40 year old engineer is professionally competent in their role I'm pretty uninterested in what they got up to in their early 20s. (Which I would be - ref your opening comments it is remarkable that my barely scraped through first degree has honours!) BUT, and it's a big bold capital letters but, if they are taking significant significant technical decisions I do want to know that somewhere along the line they have learned how to do scientific analysis to "Masters level", or more accurately to know how to carry out a rigorous scientific methodology. You can be trained to solve problems that existed in the past, but reliably and safely solving new problems or old problems in new situations needs that level of rigour. And it's very often missing. I suppose I'm particularly aware of this given that I'm working in innovation in safety critical systems, I am constantly explaining to very experienced and skilled (and senior) engineers that "we tried it and it worked" is not a methodical argument - as one of my colleagues used to say, "yes, it worked that time, doesn't mean it will work every time".


Now, I thought 3rd edition was good on this, and I think 4th edition might be slightly better. And both (to my mind) make clear that at some level this "scientific analysis" approach is needed at all three registrations, which is good.


So I'd be very concerned if any iteration of the process defined CEng as "professional engineer with academic background" and IEng as "professional engineer with practical background", that would be of no help to anyone at all. As long as they end up at the same place who cares how they got there. What's important is that, whatever the applicants background and route, the benchmark makes clear what is needed for a particular role. The driving test treats you the same whether you had lessons from an instructor or learned from your mum. And it's interesting to reflect that whatever the technical learning background in both cases they will still have had to pick up the wider C, D and E competences from somewhere. 


Personally I'm happy that 4th edition doesn't change that (although I'm happy to change my view if someone points out something that I've missed!) There's a separate question in here, which I'm very interested in because it relates to a number of applicants I'm working with at the moment, which is how non-graduate engineers prove they hold that degree level of UK&U, but that's for a separate discussion. I don't think 4th edition makes that any easier or harder?


Thanks,


Andy