Talk:Engineer/Archives/2012

NPOV needed

In the section Other meanings, there is a statement...\

A 2001 reader survey by Microsoft Certified Professional magazine found that over half of respondents supported changing the name of the MCSE to remove the word "engineer"[2].

I have am wondering if a 2001 survey is really worth citing? I think this information my be irrelevent. Just my own opinion. Piercetp 06:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I added that text since I thought it helped to illustrate the disgruntlement over the use of the term "engineer" for professional certifications - not just from traditional engineering disciplines, but even from the certified professionals themselves. However, if you feel that the statement is POV, please feel free to remove iThis article is biased towards the POV that the term "engineer" should only be used by those with engineering degrees and/or Professional Engineer certifications. While that is legally enshrined in some (not most, as the article implies) US states and countries, it glosses over the fact that the term "engineer" is and has been used in the IT field as a title for well over a decade, with no sign of that changing anytime soon. I'm working on a rewrite now, trying to come up with a more neutral way of approaching the topic. -- Uhlek

I'd agree that there are two sentences in the intro paragraph that give an inaccurate impression of the U.S. legal status of the term "engineer", and those should be corrected. However, with that exception I believe the overall article is NPOV and provides a good discussion of the many ways the term has been applied. "Engineer" is still most frequently used for those with formal training in the field of engineering; the other uses are secondary. - Engineer Bob 04:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the "other uses" section accurately dispels any problems with regard to NPOV. I concur with Engineer Bob, and I don't think the {{NPOV}} tag is warranted. --Ptkfgs 13:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe that there should possibly be a 'Misconceptions' section. For example, in the 'other uses' section there is the line "In Britain, an engineer can also mean a technician or a person that mends machinery." which is not entirely correct... 'can also mean' should be replaced with 'is often incorrectly used to describe'. Many people do not understand what an engineer is and this has resulted in the title being over used for non-engineering positions. A perfect example of this: A local council in the UK once proposed to give the title 'Refuse Engineer' to its dustmen / garbage collectors! Overall, I don't think the article is particularly biased, but i do think it should include both what engineer really means as well as how it is often used incorrectly. --SamMM 12:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

In locales where one needs government certification to use the term "Engineer", one is breaking the law when using it without certification. That's a fact, not a POV Themeparkphoto 06:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In most of the United States, the law does not regulate the use of the unmodified term "Engineer", and most places in the U.S. do not regulate titles such as "systems engineer", "computer engineer", etc. However, most of what IT people do is not engineering, as defined by the beautiful definition in this article: engineers apply established principles drawn from mathematics and science in order to develop economical solutions to technical problems. The systems administrator is akin to the "building engineer", the person who operates, maintains, and installs complicated technical equipment. Argyriou 00:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Hold on now...

However, most of what IT people do is not engineering, as defined by the beautiful definition in this article: engineers apply established principles drawn from mathematics and science in order to develop economical solutions to technical problems Argyriou.

Au contraire. Information Technology is a science, in that it is a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws. It also has a firm basis in mathematics. Therefore, based on this articles beautiful definition, Information Technology is an engineering field as both science and math are applied in order to develop solutions to technical problems. In addition, my dictionary defines engineering as The application of scientific and mathematical principles to practical ends such as the design, manufacture, and operation of efficient and economical structures, machines, processes, and systems. This is my job description, practically verbatim.

Also:

"Engineer" is still most frequently used for those with formal training in the field of engineering; the other uses are secondary. - Engineer Bob

What about those who have formal training in the IT field? There are degrees in Information Systems Engineering these days. I myself have been through the same rigamaroles any other engineer has: graduation from an accredited college or university, multiple certifications, and plenty of on the job experience. Tell me where the difference is.

If this is a matter of government recognition, maybe the wording should be changed to reflect this point. Or maybe the government in questions needs to make a few changes. --Nsbendel 17:45, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

There is certainly some engineering in the IT world, but having talked to many people in the IT business, calling what most systems administrators do "engineering" is like calling running a train "engineering". It's a skilled trade, but it's not engineering. The bulk of IT employment is some variety of tech support, and that is most definitely not engineering. Most computer programming probably does qualify, though the quality of the engineering in a lot of programming is distressingly low, and its questionable how much draws on "established principles" and on how "economic" the solutions really are. Argyriou 18:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

"The bulk of IT employment is some variety of tech support, and that is most definitely not engineering." The bulk of most oil field work is also not engineering, but there are engineers in the oil fields. I'm not saying everyone in the IT field be called an engineer, but there are engineers in the IT field. They are more educated and experienced than Technicians, the bulk of the IT field. You are right, running a train is not engineering, but designing one is. --Nsbendel 19:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Most oil-field workers don't call themselves engineers; usually only those who really are do. The IT field is not nearly so fastidious. Argyriou 19:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that too many people in the IT field call themselves Engineers when they are not, this does not mean that there are no Engineers in the IT field. That is faulty logic. --Nsbendel 20:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Faulty logic? Of course there will be people who do engineering roles somewhere in IT, there HAS to be :D. Using your own logic - I hold a PhD. in engineering and so one of the few that can legally use the title Doctor. So should everyone doing electronic engineering claim they are a "Doctor" when they do research? NO, it's just that "Engineer" is not protected in the same way.

Furthermore, 'IT' is a *subset* of Electronic Engineering, so you will be hard pressed to find someone who has done a full degree consisting of these LARGE subject areas Electromagnetics/Analogue Circuit Design/Digital Circuit Design/Photonics/Solidstate Physics/Heavy power systems/Motors/VHDL/Management oh and 'programming' to accept IT as an engineering subject. To me learning Java and C++ are the same type of skill set and much easier to fix than a real-life circuit. A big n00b (talk) 20:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

What you said as "having talked to many people in the IT business, calling what most systems administrators do "engineering"" is not quite correct. I have personally known people who do IT systems analysis and design and they are doing as much engineering (such as designing to specs vs tradeoffs, hard systematic principles vs "practical" hands-on tricks etc) as in the traditional engineering. As to your "quality of the engineering in a lot of programming is distressingly low" assertion, the same could be said to electrical engineering back to Nikholas Tesla's days when the field was occupied by the sparkies. In fact, IPENZ appears to be on my side of argument recognizing a lot of IT as engineering by the fact they have established a guideline for software engineering and they do accept software engineers to be registered as chartered engineers [1]--JNZ 02:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that the term "engineer" is very "overused". For me, it assumes a fairly high level of understanding of the one's topic/area. It is vastly different from "operator" (of any kind) that is pretty much executing a prescribed set of instructions and does not need any real understanding of the process. I think that if this approach were taken, many "engineers" would be renamed (as they should be!). I believe that this is a part of the problem: most of people can not (do not care?) to wrap their heads around this difference.

Furthermore, I would strongly disagree with the point on the development of electrical engineering (can you tell that I'm one :) ). And Tesla's name was misspelled. I would argue exactly the opposite: it seems to me that the quality of engineering is dropping! I think it is fairly obvious if you consider the quality of engineering publications these days. While it is true that back in the days most of engineering was simpler and works sometimes only described certain observations, sadly, it seems that even then there was very little hand waving. These days: engineering became "click&point": simulate & see if you got what you wanted. It's a random search, and we are lucky we are getting anything done, really.

Finally, engineering is certainly not a scientific field. It is engineering. Well: it is not a hard science (which is pretty much what I mean when I say science). Thus, IT whatever it might be, is not a science either as it maybe or maybe not passes the bar to be called engineering. Just my 2c. 18.62.30.9 (talk) 16:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Cite requests

Is there some point to this I'm missing, or do some really feel we need to cite "An engineer is someone who practices the profession of engineering?" Tom Harrison ^Talk 02:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, while that particular definition may sound tautological, the fact that the article also describes a bunch of other definitions of "engineer" (including several that don't involve "practicing the profession of engineering") it would be nice to have an actual citable reference that supports the definition in the leader. I'm looking for such a reference now. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Found one. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see why the citation requests that were just removed are "abusive". All of them were on factual assertions that are not backed up by any reference. --Allan McInnes (talk) 02:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Because sticking six "citation requested" notices in the opening paragraph looks much more like an attempt to discredit the article rather than improve it. Two of your cite requests were for common knowlege, two are easily looked up, and you could have provided the link, and two were regarding an item you would have done better to remove entirely. Argyriou 02:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Considering I'm the only person that's added any references to this article, I'm a little offended by your insinuation that I was trying to "discredit the article rather than improve it". I've been trying to improve the article. But I don't have the time to chase down every reference myself. That said:

• Even "common knowledge" may need citation, since it isn't necessarily "common" to everyone. In fact, I'm not even sure which two items you're referring to as being "common knowledge" - could you clarify?
• If two of the items are "easily looked up" then you could have simply added a citation for them, and then removed the tags - problem solved. Please consider adding the appropriate citations now (again, I'm not sure which items you are referring to).
• As for the section that was "better removed" - perhaps you're right that I should have removed it. Mea culpa.

--Allan McInnes (talk) 02:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

An engineer is someone who is trained or professionally engaged in a branch of engineering. (which is more tautological than common knowlege, but really doesn't need a citation). The title "engineer" is normally used only by individuals who have an academic degree (or equivalent work experience) in one of the engineering disciplines. Even without the qualification that some engineers have "equivalent work experience", it's common knowlege that the title is mostly used by people who have degrees in engineering.

I've added wikilinks to articles explaining the ones which I considered "easily found"; if you want to replace those with citations from those articles, feel free.

I removed the software "engineer" stuff, because even if I felt that the dispute had a place in the article's lead paragraph, the statement was incredibly POV. Argyriou 03:01, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

As I pointed out in my reply to Tom above, the definition may seem tautological, but given the fact that the article itself describes several other possible meanings for the term "engineer", I think it's worth having a citation to support the use of the definition given in the leader (a citation which I quickly added, and you promptly reverted). As for the use of the title "engineer" by people with engineering degrees, I think that the "other meanings" section indicates that such a usage isn't necessarily common knowledge (especially given the number of ads I've seen recently for" systems engineer" positions that require IT qualification rather than an engineering degree).

Wikilinks aren't sufficient citation. Using Wikipedia as a reference for itself is circular at best, and is not considered a good idea - see Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Not to mention that one of the articles you wikilinked to (Licensure) doesn't contain any references at all. Again, if these things are "easily looked up", then please add appropriate references.

I agree with your actions regarding the software stuff in the leader.

--Allan McInnes (talk) 17:46, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for assuming bad faith on your part. Between seeing the earlier edit summary reverting "abusive citation requests" and working on politically-charged articles, where massive citation requests are used to attempt to discredit an article, usually for POV reasons, it was altogether too easy to see your requests as falling into that pattern. I'm going to clean up the new "Engineer as a title" section I created (since that stuff is important, but does not belong in the intro), and draw on the Professional Engineer article heavily. Argyriou 19:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I think that the recent restructuring of the article you have done has helped improve the quality of presentation significantly. The quote in the "Working as an engineer" section is also good :-) --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I accept that your citation requests were meant in good faith. Calling them abusive was a poor choice on my part, though I have seen them used that way elsewhere as an editor tries to hold a page hostage. That said, what is unsourced after a week or so needs to be removed from the article. If you feel the citations are not there to support a good article on Engineer, we can redirect the page to Engineering. Although I see the lead there says, "Engineering is the application of scientific and technical knowledge to solve human problems," without any citation at all, so redirecting might just be moving the problem to another place. Either way, if it needs to be cited and is not, it has to be removed. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The Engineering article is certainly in need of work too (I won't argue with that :-). I've tried to add some references over there too. As for removing unsourced material, my understanding of WP guidelines and etiquette was that it should usually be tagged as in need of citation first, to give the people responsible for adding the material a chance to find a citation. If no citation is forthcoming after several weeks, then it's reasonable to remove the material. But perhaps editors used to working in different areas of WP than me are also used to a different approach to these issues. --Allan McInnes (talk) 19:40, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

That sounds good; as long as progress is being made, a few weeks is not a big deal. Thanks, Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, having just taken another glance through the Engineering article, it seems to be as much about "Engineers" as it is about "Engineering". There's significant content overlap with this article. IMHO, either the two articles should be merged, or (and this would be my preferred option) the Engineering article should be reworked to talk more about the discipline of engineering (in the same way that, for example, the Mathematics article discusses the discipline of mathematics while the Mathematician article talks about what the profession). --Allan McInnes (talk) 20:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge?

Copy-pasting my own comment from above:

Actually, having just taken another glance through the Engineering article, it seems to be as much about "Engineers" as it is about "Engineering". There's significant content overlap with this article. IMHO, either the two articles should be merged, or (and this would be my preferred option) the Engineering article should be reworked to talk more about the discipline of engineering (in the same way that, for example, the Mathematics article discusses the discipline of mathematics while the Mathematician article talks about the profession).

Expanding on that line of thought a bit, I'd like to see the Engineering article cover things like

• The history of engineering - ancient engineering (for example Roman engineering - which was often carried out by "architects" e.g. Vitruvius); the rise of modern engineering in parallel with the rise of modern science
• Discussion of the relationship between engineering and science
• Description of the common threads that all fields of engineering share
• A "topic map" of the various fields of engineering

Some of that material is already in the current article, although it perhaps needs to be reframed so that it is presented in terms of "what engineering is", rather than "what engineers do". Just my 2c. --Allan McInnes (talk) 20:30, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd much prefer your second solution - shifting some material from Engineering to Engineer. I read somewhere (don't remember where) that Wikipedia is really weak in occupation articles, so keeping a separate article is better. Argyriou 20:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I've added a similar merge request at Talk:Structural engineering#Merge of Structural engineer. I certainly don't think there is enough material for 4 articles. If "engineer" is kept, parts of "structual engineer" relating to the professional orgainsations, etc, could be merged into "engineer" rather than "structural engineering". jnestorius^(talk) 22:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh god, I just looked at those articles. They're awful. But they're short, so it's probably worthwhile to make those articles more complete at the same time as fixing the problems. I think that a parallel structure to what Allan McInnes suggested would be better than merging those two articles - information on the educational and licensing requirements for structural engineers isn't that relevant to the idea of structural engineering in general. I certainly hope there's more than enough material for four articles, because there are many more branches of engineering besides structural. Argyriou 22:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I am opposed to merging engineer and engineering. There is enough information for two articles and we have articles on a lot of major professions, and a few obscure ones, as well. I suggest doing cleanup and transfer of content, if appropriate. If transferring content, I strongly suggest that it be clearly noted in the edit summaries where the content is going and where it came from. This is so that people do not revert (thinking you are just deleting useful information) and to preserve attribution somewhat. As for the other types of engineers having separate articles, I do not mind combining them into the "blank engineering" articles, like "structural engineering", but, despite it being a good idea in other ways, I do not like the option of combining them into the engineer article, as you will have to redirect structural engineer to either structural engineering, which has the downside of it not being apparent that there is information on structural engineers in a link to the engineer article (they'll think it is just a generic article and that any information on engineers will be in the structural engineering article or in a structural engineer article), or redirect to engineer, which has the downside of people expecting it to link to structural engineering (they'll get the engineer article when the click on links and perform searches) and the downside of the information on structural engineers, and the link to structural engineering, being somewhat difficult to see, especially if it is not in the form of a bunch of different sections on the types of engineers (still not great). Leaving them separate and cleaning up and expanding them is also fine. -- Kjkolb 15:42, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I am opposed to merging for more or less the same reasons. --Rudi Dierick 11:00, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

(Opposed) By finnstru 2006-10-18 : Just looked up "engineer" because I know it has a slightly different meaning in my own language and in English. ..... Engineering however is, as seen by me (I'm an engineer or B.Sc) a very different word giving me significantly different associations. I'm an engineer, but I've never done engineering in my profession (but other engineers in other professions do). In other words, please don't mix thease :-) B.R.

Opposed to merge for reasons cited above; however, both articles should be reworked as required to minimize overlap. -- Engineer Bob 20:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Opposed to merger The structural engineering page covers the collective practice of structural engineering. A structural engineer is an individual that practices structural engineering. These are two distinct and sepearate issues. The collective practice of engineering should not be combined with the individual practitioner. As a practitioner of structural engineering I have responsibilities to my clients and to the community. (That is why I'm licensed). Structural engineering can not be held accountable to anybody or anything. I can be held accountable to laws and regulations as an individual structural engineer. (D Cole, PE SE)

another comment Not all structural engineers are civil engineers. Mechanical engineers and, on rare occassion, god help us all, the odd architect might be capable of passing the structural engineering exams.

Engineer: - Proper meaning of the word?

It would seem to me that the roots of the word Engineer relate to the word engine, or in a general sense, any kind of machine or tool. The word does not, or should not, imply knowledge of a mathematical/theoretical nature, yet it has acquired that meaning through its continual use (or its mis-application?) by academics to refer to certificates, qualifications and titles.

IIRC the word engine itself predates the industrial era, and could in fact refer to any mechanical tool, not necessarily a powerplant. I am reasonably sure that drivers of 19thC American locos were properly termed Engineers. The term engineer in its rightful use therefore implies a degree of physical skill or competence in controlling a machine.

Historically, some sources suggest that the term may originate from old French or Latin, and refer to the builders of (mediaeval or earlier) war machines, which were of course known as siege engines.

The misapplication of the word (to mean academic achievement, applied science or whatever) has become so universal that it is now inescapable, however it does raise the important question as to whether the holders of academic qualifications can rightfully expect to reserve the term for their own exclusive use.

--Anteaus 10:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello! I didn't want to edit the page, but it seems that some valuable information on the word origin could be found at

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=130620&page=9 (ignore the first couple of comments... funny but not very useful, further down there are some better discussions) and

http://www.analitica.com/va/sociedad/articulos/1262677.asp

18.62.12.12 (talk) 01:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Engineer derives from the same route as 'Ingenuity', meaning 'inventiveness'. Thus 'engineer' is directly interchangeable with the word 'inventor' and not with 'maintainer/caretaker/janitor'. The word engine derived from the word engineer and not the other way around. The first operators of locomotives were generally the builders (Trevithick, Stephenson, etc), so the term engineer also came to be used for a Train operator. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.65.80.235 (talk) 20:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Added the use of the title in the Czech Republic

Hi!

I added this sentence:

"In the Czech Republic the title "engineer" (Ing.) is given to people with a degree in chemistry, mechanical engineering or even economics (the last one is due to the historical reasons and tradition)."

Into "Engineer" as a title part. Please take a look if it is grammatically correct, thanks

Ceridan (talk) 20:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed these pointless statements.

"While scientists study things, engineers build things. This idea may be seen expressed in the phrase, "Scientists ask why, engineers ask why not?"."

This is an oversimplification and does merit a mention in an encycplopedia. --Hamsterlopithecus (talk) 13:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

University, not high school... merger required

I noticed during my edit of the USA section that an original contributor must not be fluent in English.

Most importantly, they continuously mislabled university as high school, probably a direct translation from "Fachhochschule" which is the German word for technical school. (In English, high school is the same as "gymnasium" in German, whereas university and technical school are more closely interchangeable words.)

Grammar throughout this article is quite deplorable. Some facts in the USA education section were blatantly wrong.

I would have taken the time to edit the entire article, but I think it should be merged or deleted, as mentioned in this discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amornoguerra (talk • contribs) 05:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Editing articles in Wikipedia is essentially a waste of time. Look at the french version and you will see it is far better than this one. It took me some time to synchronise the training section and it is all destroyed now. USA is not the center of the world, all of you should know that there are Universities and High School and it is not a German specificity. But let's leave it as is now since it is what you want. --Michel Deby (talk) 23:49, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your job Argyriou, now we are back. --Michel Deby (talk) 00:25, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Under engineering education in the USA, this reader doesn't understand the distinction between the two lists of schools, which certainly isn't exhaustive or even representative - UCSD wouldn't pop up in the first 10 engineering schools that I would think of (although both of my alma maters, Purdue and Ga Tech are listed). For example, Purdue and Michigan are basically identical in being large multi-disciplinary institutions that have large engineering schools amongst all of the other non-engineering schools present on campus. I have no idea where the engineer I through IV business comes in - sounds like something specific to a given company - other organizations go from engineer through senior engineer to lead engineer, etc. as an example. As to the degrees, a Master's degree usually involves either a thesis or significant project that includes original research, just like a Ph.D.(just that the research is on a smaller scale typically). I would estimate that the majority of engineers with doctorates (such as myself) work in industry, not academia, so they "often" DON'T teach in engineering schools. I'd also disagree that American universities, particularly those offering engineering degrees, are "generally" private (just look at the list of ten "representative" schools listed in the previous paragraph, most are public state-run institutions). Also, while there are differences in schools, the "education practices" at accredited universities meet common standards so I wouldn't say that they "differ greatly." Indeed, other than in their devotion to their alma maters, I haven't found in the past 25 years that engineers from different schools vary substantially, certainly not in their professional skills. By the way, you can get a general engineering degree in the U.S. although most opt for one from a given school or discipline - certainly the state licensing processes tends to test general engineering skills rather than those in a given specialty. Basically, there's not much in this section that I don't find curious and a little out of whack (to use a technical term). As has been stated by others, this article needs some work. jmdeur 15:06 7 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.148.60.151 (talk)

I was wondering what significance the list of universities in the USA is. I have searched and still haven't been able to find a reason for the order or selection of universities... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.76.68.170 (talk) 22:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Arrgh!

Hi, as a real german student I recognized some horrible nonsense in the passage about engineer-training in Germany. Please be more careful and write only things you know for sure!

134.130.112.141 (talk) 21:32, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

In general writing "only things you know for sure" is not the Wikipedia way. My expereince is that many contributors fail to research their subjects and prejudice reigns. It tends to be weight of numbers and the amateur approach, especially amateur science that holds sway. Nonsense is often the name of the game. The Engineer and Engineering pages are not particularly brilliant. Any subjects in the non-physical area fare even worse, far worse. I have only been a Professional Enginer for forty years and a Healer for sixteen years, so what do I know. Congratulations on managing to correct something. RichardKingCEng (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

No need to be ironic. I'm used to the 99.5%-correctness of the german Wikipedia. Maybe I have to learn not to explode on every crying-for-help-mistake in the english version. Thanks for the statement. 134.130.112.141 (talk) 15:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

"a kind of university possibly best described as three-year colleges as opposed to full universities" - What?

That is not the correct description of a Fachhochschule/Hochschule. All of them issue the european master and bachelor's degree in engineering, legally equivalent to the degrees issued from German Universities. The diplom and diplom(fh) degrees are obsolete.

who is Paigemont Livingston under the European engineers?

Sounds like some BS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.169.69.114 (talk) 21:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Added France Section

I added a short descriptive concerning the obtention of engineering degrees in France. G.ardaud (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:49, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

British Universities.

The section on Britain talks of 4 year undergraduate courses and 5 year MEng courses. AFAIK (being British myself...) British uni's all have 3 or 4 year undergrad programmes leading to a Bachelors' degree or Masters' degree (MEng) respectively. I am unaware of any British university with a 5 year programme (with exception of medicine/dentisry/vet med). I will alter the information myself, but wanted to raise the issue here first incase there is something i'm missing Jonaboff_talk 18:22, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Scottich universities have 4 year undergraduate courses and at least one university, The University of Edinburgh, has a 5 year MEng Master of Engineering course. This is due to scottish students leaving college a year earlier than their English, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts. I am from NI and attended The University of Edinburgh, and took this MEng course. Offers are made for students to skip 1st year if they have sufficiently good A-Level grades, but the basic courses are 4 and 5 years in Scotland. crobar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.183.34 (talk) 08:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Role in society

The "role in society" section doesn't mention the stereotypical role of an engineer in the management, particularly middle management. In engineering jobs, it is common for an engineer to issue instructions for technical workers. --Vuo (talk) 12:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

stub

Does anyone have an engineer stub picture? If so, please send one to me. Albertgenii12 (talk) 21:43, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Tone

The tone of this article is inappropriate, which is why I added {{Inappropriate tone}}. We must go through it rewrite some areas. I tossed around couple edits, but just a scratch on the surface. At least one group of bulleted lists could be rewritten into text, since there is no introduction to them: the list of the qualities necessary to be a good engineer. I'm honestly surprised this is a B-rated article. Best of luck to us to bring it up from here. ~ Wadester16 (talk) 03:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Expert template

The detail given here on the education of engineers in different countries and the reference about the meaning of technologist in different countries needs to be checked in view of the Bologna Process Do the statements made here still hold? LouisBB (talk) 04:32, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Education Section

Hi There, I removed the following sentence from the education and training section. It previously was the first sentence of the section! Anyways, I am leaving it here because it was fairly interesting information, which could perhaps be used in a history of engineering or something like that.

"Budapest University of Technology and Economics is considered the oldest university of technology in the world. The legal predecessor of the university was founded in 1782 by Emperor Joseph II, named Institutum Geometrico-Hydrotechnicum (Institute of Geometry and Hydrotechnics)."

Speak up if you can think of a spot where this info might fit nicely. Thanks 65.209.6.2 (talk) 22:04, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Education and Training

High all, I'm not an engineer, and I am in no way an expert, but under the education and training bit it talks about 'soft skills' - this all sounds a bit BS-y. I mean, the soft skills listed could be equally applied to thousands of other different jobs. I'll not edit the section myself because of my lack of expertise in the areas, but if what I say is correct, could somebody with a bit more expertise edit it. Cheers Darigan (talk) 14:50, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

These people have benifited mankind and should be treated as heros —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.55.253.137 (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Create new sub-article: 'List of engineering schools worldwide'

Its probably annoying to most users to see the on-going article bloat due to continuous contributions to the Accreditation sections, by editors who keep adding names of engineering schools. An example is this section for Accreditation in Canada:

"Some of the schools include: Concordia University, École de technologie supérieure, École Polytechnique de Montréal, University of Toronto, University of Saskatchewan, University of Victoria, University of Calgary, University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, McGill University, Dalhousie University, Ryerson University, University of Regina, Carleton University, McMaster University, University of Ottawa, Queen's University, University of New Brunswick, UOIT, University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, University of Windsor, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Royal Military College of Canada just to name a few."

Note the subtle humour at the very tail of the list ("...just to name a few"). I propose to start a new sub-article: 'List of engineering schools worldwide', and then transfer all the schools listed within the accreditation sections to the new List article. I believe this article will function better if the accreditation sections are limited mainly to the criteria and accreditation processes for each of the noted countries, rather than including an ever-expanding list of institutions offering engineering degrees or programs.

The new List article I'm suggesting would then be referenced within this article using standard See also: templates to direct interested parties there. The List article would be meant for 'post-secondary institutions offering engineering programs that require a minimum of three years of full-time attendance for successful completion (or equivalent)'. The List table would be sortable, with four fields: 1) country, 2) institution name, 3) city or location, and 4) engineering disciplines (e.g.: mechanical, electrical, naval, etc...).

Comments or suggestions? HarryZilber (talk) 18:13, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I placed the huge list of country-specific info on programs and accreditation on Engineering education. Seems like a good fit since all those details are excessive for this article here. Was going to remove the duplicated text here but it showed up as a false positive for vandalism. I think we should have a shorter, more general section on the education that links to the longer engineering education article, similar to how physician has a short section on medical education and lawyer has a short section on legal education. Ultimately, I think we should overhaul this article to make it more similar to the way physician and lawyer are organized. I'm ready to give this a try if its OK with editors here. Engini86 (talk) 05:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Button pushers

It seems that anyone employed to push buttons, or wield a spanner or an oilcan is now erroneously regarded as an 'engineer' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.153.194.106 (talk) 09:47, 16 April 2011 (UTC)