The Ritual Calling of the Engineer | Hacker News Reader

The Ritual Calling of the Engineer

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75 pointsjoegaudet56 comments

Although it is a bit goddy for my tastes, I've always liked the Ritual Calling of the Engineer and the Iron Ring that goes with it, which is unusual because I'm certainly not one for ceremony. But I appreciate the serious tone and quiet underlining of the importance of the discipline.

I'm not an engineer, but one of my top software dev industry pet peeves: "Software Engineers" who aren't actually engineers. It drives me nuts.

Pet peeve for me too, specially at Silicon Valley startups, where a political science grad student who codes some Ruby on Rails on the side, joins the company as a "Senior Software Engineer".

I couldn't agree more, that's why I like that in Canada you have to be a PEng to get to out right call your self an engineer on your resume or business card.

Me personally I am an EIT (Engineer in Training) which means I have a degree but not enough work experience (you need 4 years under a PEng) to be a full fledged Engineer.

Regardless of what the official reasons stated for the creation of such government enforced monopolies on professional titles are, the true motivations are always the same: protectionism. Requiring someone to have an official certification and then limiting the number of such certifications, either explicitly or implicitly by requiring extensive education and experience, reduces the number of certified individuals, resulting in higher wages.

Would you be fine flying planes designed and built by professionals without extensive education and experience?

I thought so...

I would like my airplanes designed by nothing less than certified professional wizards.

Well... As long as they are really good at making planes, I'd be fine too.

I believe it is a mistake to assume that engineering certifications ensure that engineers are experienced professionals. I think it is far more normal for engineers to do a few years of actual engineering out of school before they are scooped up into management.

My father makes good money fixing the mistakes of professional engineers. And most of the mistakes he encounters are simply the result of poor experience.

Actually, this was created to protect the public safety. To ensure that no one was holding them self out to be an engineer without evidence that they had the credentials to back it up.

The government didn't create this distinction, Canadian Engineers did. After a bridge in Quebec city fell down killing many workers in a completely avoidable accident, a group of Engineers met and determined that there should be an organization to encourage both good work, and the passing on of information to the next generation of engineers.

"The Engineering Institute of Canada agreed there should be a ceremony or a standard of ethics that should be developed for graduating engineers. They requested the assistance of Rudyard Kipling for the development of a suitable ceremony or ritual"

The goal here was never to make more money, in fact lots of engineers don't make massive piles of money. The goal of this tradition was to impart a system of ethics and obligation on graduating engineers to remind them of their duty to the public to do good work.

.joe

Maybe I misread, but are you saying a private group created a protected title?

Well obviously they lobbied the government to make the title protected.

I sympathize with this position, I really do. But in some cases, I can really justify the protectionism.

Are you prepared to call for removal of requirement for medical doctors to be certified and licensed next?

I'd be prepared to call for the AMA not to have a monopoly on their certification and licensing. As it is, we bypass them anyway by importing a bunch of doctors who went to med schools in the Caribbean. Why not run more U.S. med schools instead? At the very least, increase the number of med-school slots in line with population growth; there are now fewer med-school slots per capita than there were in 1980, because the AMA refused to allow any new med schools to open between 1982 and 2001, and has put strict limits on enrollments at existing schools. Throughout the 80s and 90s they justified this with dire predictions of a "glut" of doctors, which of course turned out to be incorrect.

Sounds fair, but that concerns the amount of people licensed, not the requirement to be licensed in the first place.

If you create an AMA2 while maintaining present licensing standards, you're simply moving the ultimate responsibility for guarding the standards from AMA and AMA2 to an entity above them.

Ensuring a baseline ability of doctors doesn't ensure a baseline level of care. It can actually decrease the number of doctors and make it harder for poor people to get care. If you required all car mechanics to go to school for a decade and intern for four years, you'd get some great mechanics. Unfortunately, you'd end up with higher repair costs and more broken cars.

So yes, I'd certainly like to decrease the influence of the medical guild. While the average doctor would be less qualified, the average outcome would most likely be better.

After seeing the quality (or lack) thereof of people who have nonetheless graduated from medical school, I see no point in having any kind of license.

Of course, people who practice medicine should not be allowed to claim that they have a degree from such or such university unless they do (just as food labeled organic has to be organic), but that would be fraud, and we don't need a separate requirement for that.

In Québec, to call yourself an Engineer and join the OIQ (Ordre des Ingénieurs du Québec), post-graduation, you need to work for 3 years as an EIT, then pass a 3 part exam about the profession.

The problem is in canada that an engineering degree is ALL that's required to be an engineer but is also the ONLY thing that's required.

I work with a team building satellites, we have physics PhDs. But we aren't engineers, so we aren't recognised professionals = we have to be in the union, we can't be mangers - while the lowest 'engineer in training' with a pass grade in an engineering degree is an exempt employee that can be promoted to a 'professional' post.

That's incorrect on both fields. First, in addition to the degree you need to pass the professional engineering examinations administered by your provincial association. Second, at least in Ontario you can indeed get licensed as a professional engineer without having an engineering degree if your background and skills are deemed sufficient. Since licenses are portable between provinces, I would imagine this is the case in other provinces as well.

"If you do not have an undergraduate degree in engineering from a program accredited by the CEAB, your academic background will be assessed by PEO to determine whether it is equivalent to the established standards. PEO will assign technical exams to give you an opportunity to confirm (Confirmatory Examination Program) that your academic preparation is equivalent or to remedy any identified deficiencies (Specific Examination Program).

If you have been assigned a Confirmatory Examination Program and have more than five years of engineering experience, PEO may grant you an interview with its Experience Requirements Committee (ERC) to determine if your experience provides any basis to warrant exam relief."

http://www.peo.on.ca/registration/education.html

There is not one day I do not abide by the oath (slightly different, as I live in Brazil) that I took when receiving the title of Engineer.

It's my craft and I take it very, very seriously.

Interestingly, I never signed anything as "Engº Ricardo Bánffy"...

That's a really interesting tradition, Joe — thanks for sharing. As an engineering student in the US, I was unaware of this, but I kind of wish we took part in such a sacrament too. Being an engineer is an honor and truly is something you must be called to do.

On a side note, I get really offended when people nonchalantly call themselves engineers. It's a title you have to earn, not one you just can decide to call yourself.

I believe some schools in the states are starting to do a similar tradition.

According to Wikipedia, there is a similar organization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Engineer), but the chapter at my university is inactive (according to their website). Such a shame.

I think my favorite part of the ceremony was the poem Rudyard Kipling wrote about engineers, entitled "The Sons of Martha."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Martha

Fascinating. Strikes me as somewhat a parallel to the Hippocratic Oath. Being that engineering often deals with taming huge forces (somebody here referred to a collapsing bridge), and also with the welfare of the public, the argument for a ritual hilighting personal responsibility can definitely be substantiated.

"Here in Canada we take the term fairly seriously (it's copyrighted)."

Wow, I can understand a tweet being a creative work and therefore copyrightable, but a single word?

It's not copyrighted (of course you can't copyright a single word), but it is a protected term. You're not allowed to use it unless you're qualified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_over_the_term_Eng...

Seems strangely Orwellian (in the sense of his politics-via-language writings, not the police-state kind of Orwellianism). It's a descriptive word that long predates these organizations, so it's sort of weird for them to retroactively take ownership of it. I can see specific, narrower terms, like Professional Engineer or Licensed Engineer, but engineering is just a description of a kind of activity that people have done for millennia, and an engineer is someone who does it.

For the non-Canadian-engineers in the audience, the picture is the Iron Ring that is given to all engineering graduates in Canada. It's worn on the pinky of the working hand, the original purpose being that it will smudge as you draw/write and generally serve as a constant reminder of the oath you've taken.

I know a couple of people who have stopped wearing it since graduation despite still doing engineering work. It's a little disappointing.

Maybe they don't want their work smudged?

Hard to smudge a mousepad...

I lost mine somewhere in California :/ I would be curious to see the percentage of my graduating colleagues of 5 years ago, who still wear it.

You can get it replaced.

I think it's just 20 bucks or something, the first one costs about 40k after that they are cheap :P

> the original purpose being that it will smudge as you draw/write and generally serve as a constant reminder of the oath you've taken.

Really? I always thought it was so you would see it when you where about to sign off on drawings so you would do one more mental check in your head to make sure you are doing proper due diligence.

I guess it's the same idea:)

I think the ring it self was supposed to wear down over time.

There is also a thing about it being as far away from your 'gold' wedding band as possible, signifying that your primary goal in work should be the work... not the gold.

It's worn on the pinky finger so that you can feel it when you rest your hand to write (sign something). Just to remind you to not screw up and kill people.

The ring itself wears down over time, obviously, and I've heard some symbolism about "rough edges" going away as you age associated with it. I've even heard an anecdote about a senior engineer who lost his ring and got a replacement. He was seen in the machine shop taking a belt sander to it because he "felt like a kid."

The symbolism about other rings is that the mofo is steel and rough, meaning that you can't really wear another ring next to it without damaging it (unless you have another steel ring). The symbolism is about the pursuit of good engineering trumping the pursuit of wealth.

I'm sure the fact that hardness of the ring makes it capable of (and good at) opening beer bottles is entirely unintentional.

>I'm sure the fact that hardness of the ring makes it capable of (and good at) opening beer bottles is entirely unintentional.

They're Canadians.

It's worn on the pinky finger of the working hand so that it drags across your work, serving as a constant reminder. It doesn't smudge, it just presses against your skill all the time.

That's also why it has the rugged "hammered" look. It's rough because the ring is not jewelry, it's meant to be rough to remind you of the symbolism.

Interestingly, very few Canadian schools still offer _iron_ rings, most of them nowadays are made out of stainless steel.

I believe Camp one (i.e. University of Toronto and Ryerson) are the only schools left who offer real _iron_ rings (they're actually often rings returned by people who have retired/passed away, since it is asked that upon retiring from the Engineering profession you return your ring)... I'm not sure it's possible, but if you're a Canadian Engineer I'd highly recommend to drop by the Engineering Alumni office at UofT and getting yourself a real iron ring if you can, they're absolutely amazing.

See, I like the idea of the iron ring, but there's a certain sentimental value to the one you got at graduation. I think I'm going to try and keep this for as long as I can even though it's stainless :S

Nah all the camps still offer them, you just need to ask. I wanted a stainless steel one, since the only thing that really matters to me is the symbolism.

I don't wear the ring because it has undertones of being a status symbol. "I'm a smart engineer, with a ring to prove it."

Which I always find amusing, because its intent couldn't be farther from a status symbol. I feel as though the actions of a few arrogant engineers have ruined what is a very good tradition.

lol, isn't the idea of the ring humbleness and humility in face of their roles and responsibilities?

I think of mine as a +1 ring of responsibility.

You could wear your ring "a la Frodo", you know? I'd be kind of cool, not wearing it on your finger, because of the effect it may have on your personality; but a ring-bearer you're non the less.

Pretty good oath for being a good human being all around ... not just for engineers.

Couldn't agree more.

A good antidote to "Work fast and don't be afraid to break things". Even when there's a legitimate business case for sloppy work, somehow it just never sits right.

I just entered the American equivalent, the Order of the Engineer. Our ring is smooth, polished stainless steel and the obligation is not as ponderous (written around 1970 as I recall). I think it's definitely a worthwhile thing.

Nitpick: as the text itself says, but the title doesn't, the name is "The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer".

Absolutely unreadable dark grey on black. Are you nuts?

You can use http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ or just disable the stylesheet in your browser ("View -> Page Style -> No Style" in Firefox).

I was about to plead the old, I am an engineer, cut me a break deal.

But actually, in all honesty, I don't often look at my blog from the outside of tumblr perspective. And this is the first thing I've posted of my own on here.

So long and short, point taken, I'll look at some of the other built in tumblr themes... I don't want to spend time making a fancy one my self.

.joe

Thank you, and sorry for the harsh tone, in daylight I winced and could read nothing :)

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