CEng ,Eng Tech ,IEng ?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by Aeronut

The requirements for the award of CEng make it a valuable and known quantity:

ECUK - Registration Requirements

http://www.engc.org.uk/documents/EC0...rochure_MR.pdf

Those that berate it are usually those who are either unable, or cannot be bothered, to pursue it.

I've been a CEng for 14 years, am proud of that (perhaps more so than my PhD) and believe it is a valuable benchmark of quality, and would personally support it becoming a licence to practice in many jobs (for example for a design engineer at a level where he/she is allowed to sign off design work, a flight test engineer approving test plans, and most especially a university lecturer teaching future Chartered Engineers.)

But, after getting over the initial "CEng / graduate route elite" brainwashing of my youth, I've come to realise that there is no single "technological elite" within our industry. The various flavours of engineer are not superior to each other (on average, not even financially), albeit that there are certainly levels of quality within each flavour: a CEng is superior to a simple BEng and a licenced engineer is superior to unlicenced (on average!), and there's an inevitable overlap between our respective skillsets.

Ultimately, working in engineering is rewarding, worthwhile, and sometimes even well paid. But whether we trained via an undergraduate degree --> CEng, research --> PhD/postdoc/fellow, or apprenticeship --> licences, is a matter of different routes through the profession and consistently improving personal qualities, not anybody's "elite status" because they belong to one bit or another.

G