This is a commentary specifically on if requiring more education is necessary. I think, like many things in this life, "it depends".
First, I think we need to all be careful of our own bias here, myself included. It's human nature to believe that our own experiences are more valid than someone else's. So, if I only have a Bachelor's degree and have had an excellent career, I would be convinced that this is all anyone else needs. If I went into more debt to get a Master's degree and I don't feel it paid off, I'd probably tell people it isn't worth it. If I did get a Master's degree and thought it was very helpful in my career, I'd tell other people to do that. It's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to view our own experiences objectively, and it's hard to know how much is simply good (or bad) luck, for example engineers who graduated with Master's degrees in 2009 may have been unable to find a job at all through absolutely no fault of their own. So, I think a critical point is to not discount other engineers' experiences in this area as invalid, simply because it doesn't match your own.
So, I will share my story, not to convince you either way, but to add another voice to the discussion that you can use to come to your own conclusion.
My career (15 years) has been in private practice structural engineering consulting, and my university alma mater offered a 5 1/2 year program where you could graduate with both a Bachelor's and Masters in architectural engineering. I have never worked in academia, unless you count my short stint as a TA in college to earn a few extra bucks.
I went with the structural option in my major, so in addition to a thesis, the last 1 1/2 years was full of unique material-related courses, since as in-depth masonry design, wood design, design of advanced structures such as cable-supported, forensic structural engineering, advanced concrete and steel (in my education I had 3-4 courses in each outside of the standard analysis course), and more. I would not have been able to take those advanced courses had I stuck with only the Bachelor's degree option, and from what I've seen in many civil engineering programs, those classes aren't even options.
As a result, when I walked into my first job (structural design at an architecture firm) and one of the first tasks I had was to design a masonry screen wall, my preliminary design was ready in a day for review, whereas some of my colleagues needed to spend weeks learning (and their managers spending hours teaching) things I already knew. That's just one example, similar things happened many other times, resulting in significant raises and more responsibility than many of my peers in my first couple of years of work.
So, for me, as a non-academic, private practitioner, the effect on my career with the additional degree was both immediate and positively affected the long-term trajectory career through financial rewards and faster promotions. I feel like I had a "head start" because of the extra classes, and because my professors were experts in these different material fields, I feel like I learned faster and more quickly in college from focused effort in a specific material area than I could have possibly learned from my early managers, who were more generally-focused engineers balancing multiple projects, in multiple materials, with limited budgets, supervising multiple EIT's.
I also think this is one of the reasons in the structural field that many of the higher-end firms in the industry are only hiring students (or strongly prefer students) with a Master's degree.But, I also believe that extra degree - and perhaps, more importantly, the timing of getting that extra degree (and if you or an employer pays for it) - is not the same for everyone. I know more than one really good engineer who was a B student in school because the teaching style there (mostly lecture as opposed to hands-on) wasn't compatible with their learning style. Yet, now more than one of those are running their own company, hiring students who, on paper, have much better grades than they did. This goes to another commenter's point that academic performance in school doesn't necessarily correlate to "real world" performance.
And, if you're a student who is not fairly certain of the area in civil engineering you want to go into, getting an extra degree without work experience is almost always a bad idea. Why? Because in the event that area isn't a good fit, you'll be forever tied to a field that isn't your passion, based on a decision you made at the age of about 20. I think those of us over 20 can agree that we made some questionable decisions when younger...... And, as other commenters have said, for some people an M.Eng in project management or MBA might be a better fit than a masters degree.
So, for me "it depends" and should be a decision based on individual circumstances. If our goal is to make better engineers as an industry, we'd be very well served to have a model where all students can get work experience before getting an advanced degree.
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Stephanie Slocum P.E.,M.ASCE
Founder
Engineers Rising LLC
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-01-2019 10:59
From: Heidi Wallace
Subject: Engineering Tomorrow Initiative
I'm curious how many are in support of the push to require a masters or 30 hours of post-grad academic experience? From my perspective it seems to be largely supported by universities (who will make a lot more money if this requirement passes) and those that are decades out of school.
Here's my two cents
-Extra academic experience is not always translatable to better job performance. (This can be seen in other forum topics where people with a Masters are discouraging others from getting one depending on their career goals.)
-Extra academic experience requires greater upfront financial investment, and for many that means thousands of additional dollars in student loans. Not all companies can/will offer financial assistance for a Masters, and those with a family may not be able to feasibly work full time and pursue a Masters at the same time.
-Not everyone will know after undergrad what specific topic they would want to pursue for a Masters that would advance them the furthest in their career. The options for a Masters are often quite narrow. Would it not make more sense for many to work for a few years and then decide what area they want to dive deeper into? Not all 23-year-olds leaving college with one or two internships know exactly what they do and don't like doing in the "real world." I loved my concrete design class and hated hydrology, but in practice I've found the opposite to be true. If you shove "you have to have a Masters" down the throats of undergrads, you could very well end up with transportation PEs that have an MS in structures or site development PEs that have an MS in transportation. How is that beneficial to the discipline of civil engineering?
-There is no good masters degree option for some of the sub-disciplines within our field. The first that comes to mind is site development. We can't build without site development civil engineers, and there is already a shortage of young EIs and PEs in that area.
-Hands-on workplace experience and mentoring can be much more beneficial to growth as an engineer. There are things that can't be learned as well in a classroom: coordination with other engineering disciplines, working with architects and contractors, client interactions, navigating some of the state and local permitting practices and standards. I believe with 100% confidence that I am farther along in my career than I would have been if I'd spent two more years in school instead of learning in my field.
Ways to continue to "ensure civil engineers have the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to practice in the future," as Engineering Tomorrow promotes, do not have to include getting a Masters or 30 hours of Masters credit. Requiring it is, in my opinion, the lazy and profitable way out.
Instead why not try
-Promote mentoring both within and outside of companies
-Offer/require beneficial continuing education opportunities outside of academia
-Extend the experience requirement to 5 years instead of 4 for PE certification
-Distinguish between the different areas of civil engineers. Maybe structural engineers need a certain number of hours of Masters level structural courses (whether taken as an undergrad or after), but transportation and construction probably don't. We are a broad and multifaceted field; let's not make a one-size-fits-all rule that reduces the number of qualified candidates.
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Heidi Wallace EI,A.M.ASCE
Tulsa, OK
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