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Comment by abfan1127 | Hacker News Reader

I've been a hardware engineer for 15 years. I've designed medical devices, DSP chipsets, and audio chipsets. for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering. There is not a single "Professional Engineer" in my office.

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I'm a nuclear engineer and also unlicensed and also know very few who are, but...

> for me to call my self a "Professional Engineer", I have to pass a test almost wholly focused on Civil Engineering

isn't true. The FE exam has a number of discipline options, including Electrical and Computer[0] and the PE exam is then done be discipline.

[0] https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Electrical-and-Compu...

That may not be true anymore - I looked into the engineering exams (FE and PE), and they've been much more specialized. I think this happened fairly recently.

https://ncees.org/engineering/fe/

So I could (but almost certainly won't) take the "Industrial Engineering" exam and focus mainly on IE topics:

https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/FE-Industrial-and-Syste...

this is new (from when I looked at it 15 years ago). good for them to expand beyond their original focus.

The PE exam isn't only for Civil Engineers.

List of Engineering Disciplines that can take the PE exam:

- Agricultural and Biological Engineering - Architectural Engineering - Chemical - Civil - Control Systems - Electrical and Computer - Environmental - Fire Protection - Industrial and Systems - Mechanical - Metallurgical and Materials - Mining and Mineral Processing - Naval Architecture and Marine - Nuclear - Petroleum - Structural

This is new (within the last 10-15 years). When I graduated in 2006, there was only 1 test and it was 95% Civil Engineering, mostly intended for signing off on electrical and structural plans.

same here, for aerospace

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