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Ask Slashdot: Is Professional Engineering Certification Necessary?

Posted by Cliff on from the certifications-and-careers dept.

resilient asks: "I have one year before I graduate with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I have the opportunity to take a preperation class for the first test in order to get my Professional Engineering Certificate (P.E.). My question is to all the experienced Electrical Engineers or Computer Engineers: Do I need a P.E. to succeed in today's industry? Will it be a limiting factor? In what situations would you reccomend taking it? I am open for any advice you may have." Another certification issue, but when it comes to engineering, I think the certifications become VERY important. What do you all say?

1 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Many people misunderstand what a PE is. by jguthrie · · Score: 5
    I'm not a professional engineer, but my father was. I'm not eligible because I do programming instead of engineering, and there is no programming equivalent in Texas (at least not yet) to the professional engineering license.

    Many of the comments I have read indicate that some people are confusing a Professional Engineering license with some other sort of "professional" certification like a MSCE or CNE. The two are very different sorts of animal. Once you fulfill the requirements to become a professional engineer and actually get the license, your state (assuming you're in the USA) recognizes that you are an engineer and you are allowed to do a number of things that non-engineers aren't allowed to do. The PE exam is for engineers very much like the bar exam is for lawyers

    So, should you become a professional engineer? Maybe. You should take the EIT (engineer in training) exam while you can still remember all your courses---especially the ones in the fields that aren't your speciality. It doesn't really cost you anything and can make your life easier down the road.

    Once you get the practical experience (you need to have worked under for a PE for a while in order to be eligible to take the PE exam) then you can consider whether or not it would be worthwhile for you to take the PE exam. It might be worthwhile for an electrical engineer to become a PE if he wanted to become a consulting engineer and especially if he wanted to design equipment that was to be itself certified by some agency like UL.