Engineer or Not? How many people have engineering degrees?

[Michael T]

Uhhhh... Yes and No

Hmmm... tough one. I have a Masters of Science in Quality Management. It's a joint degree from the College of Engineering and the School of Business Administration and I graduated with the Engineering students. So, what do I call it? I'm not an engineer, but have had industrial engineering courses and experience and work closely with the engineers in the plant (mechanical, electrical and industrial).

Cheers!!

Mike

 

[SteelMaiden]

well, you can go with psuedo engineer. 99% of the people I work with think that I am a metallurgist, even though I don't have the engineering degree. Or quasi is another term I use.

Have a good one!

 

[Mike S.]

Steel,

Being an engineer and having an engineering degree are, or can be, two different things, IMO. I've worked with some fine engineers who had no college degree whatsoever. I've worked with some folks who had an engineering degree that were poor to incompetent engineers. You seem to be a good example of the former. Performance is what counts in the end, at least to me.

 

[Jimmy Olson]

Mike,

I have to agree with your comment. We have engineers here who think they are gods and are great out spouting their thoughts and opinions, but never do anything productive and are lost on the production floor. We also have technicians who handle all the issues and know more about the production floor than the engineers. Of course all of this has led to some great "debates" here.

 

[db]

BAA

How about a BAA? Industrial Supervision and Management

 

[M Greenaway]

Sounds like a sheep

 

[rafrost]

How does BSME sound.

20 years ago, and I haven't worked in the field directly yet.

 

[mlowden]

Sorry - no degree here. Still doing it the 'hard' way.

Started working after school in a machine shop at age 14 - thought I might want to be a machinist when I grew up. 34 years later I'm still not sure what I want to be when I grow up. I've been working in the quality field for the last 23 years, first as a quality manager at a small hot-forge plant, and the last 15 years as a quality engineer at a large manufacturing facility. (Mainly automotive) For the last two years I have been earning my salary as one of those 'Six Sigma' guys. &

Anyway, really enjoy this site / forum - I've been using it as a reference for a long time and its been very helpful.

 

[Laura M]

BS - Industrial Administration (Huh ?- production management stuff - a few engineering courses short of IE)
MS - Applied and Mathematical Statistics

Most engineers I work with think I have the diploma.

 

[JodiB]

Poor poor pitiful me

No engineering degree. Mine is in Biology, with excessive loads of chemistry and thankfully only two semesters of Physics.

So my resumes are tossed into the trash heap around here. What is it that makes companies confuse "quality" with "engineering" anyway??? What the heck difference does it make if I don't have 10 years experience with plastic extrusion or 10 years experience with pipeline field design, etc? Isn't the role of a quality professional to use the field knowledge of others to drive improvements?? Why in the world does everyone around here (my hometown, not the Cove) think that you have to have worked your way up from the factory floor?

Sorry.. just blowing off steam. Can't you tell I'm still "looking"? The engineering degree requirement is really chafing my :ca: . After three months, I'm reaching the crossroads in deciding whether I should return to school and remain in quality, or just forget about it and move on to something else.

I guess the advantage to getting an engineering degree is that I might look really cute in glasses and a ponytail...