P.E. Magazine Features Article by MSPE Member Tom Vaughan, PE
The article below by Thomas J. Vaughan, Jr., PE, Principal of GSC Engineering, Inc. and MSPE’s President-Elect, was featured on page 3 of the June issue of PE Magazine, the publication of the National Society of Professional Engineers.
Thank you, Tom, for sharing your insights and your continued contributions to the engineering profession and fellow members of MSPE and NSPE.
FE ‘Right of Passage’
by Thomas J. Vaughan, Jr., PE
Principal, GSC Engineering, Inc.
The new FE exam format appears to fraction engineering into specialties that don’t communicate with each other and further reduces the feelings of “community” within the profession. We talk about “raising the bar” and broadening the humanities background of engineers, but the FE is narrowing even the technical scope we expect of engineers (“The Evolution of the FE,” March, p. 20).
I took the paper FE exam 29 years after college. I thought it was: 1) an intellectually stimulating exercise and 2) exactly the kind of common core knowledge engineers need to be able to communicate with each other and that distinguishes them from the general population.
On a subtler note, bringing a large group of people together for the FE and PE exams was a shared rite of passage that united engineers. It is a feeling I have seen in CPAs. Similarly, physicians appreciate our experience requirements. The separate postgraduation FE exam distinguished those engineers going for a professional license from those going into industry. My opinion based on anecdotal evidence is that nonlicensed “industrial exemption” engineers who at one time passed the separate FE tend to think of their work as more of a profession. Even going one extra step toward a license ties them to the profession of engineering.
The article describes testing “thermodynamics” as a waste of time for certain disciplines. My background is mostly civil/structural and electrical/computer, but I found thermodynamics to be especially useful on several projects. Thermo may not be part of the current curriculum, but I would be less of an engineer today if I had not been tested on it.
I believe that making the FE a requirement for graduation is a mistake. As a result, it appears that the breadth of the FE exam is being reduced to fit limitations of the curricula. This may be convenient for academia, but I don’t think it is good for the profession.