Quit calling yourselves that: you're all web developers, not engineers. At the end of the day, 95% of what people on HN do revolves around making pretty websites for the internet.
You have not taken the FE exam, you did not study engineering, you are not certified as an engineer. This is just the latest way that CS graduates are trying to self aggrandize and de-trivialize their profession.
I find it rather offensive to generalize everyone on HN into one category. I have read comments from people in all stages of life and many different professions and we do not need this kind of talk.
I can call myself a software ninja if I wanted to. That doesn't mean I practiced the art of ninjas. I can call myself a code monkey. That doesn't mean I'm actually a monkey. It's just a fucking title, so get over it. If that's my actual title at a company then I'm going to use it publicly too.
It makes sense for safety critical areas to hold people to professional standards and legal liability.
Edit: speling
"Engineer" is a protected job title in the US, but most are able to operate under an industrial exemption and so legally use the title.
The reason why some are picky about the title is that it is a licensed profession, and has some expectations associated with it. If someone tells me they're an engineer, I assume they know how to use a Laplace transform, because that's common across disciplines at the undergraduate level. Same as applying perturbation theory at the graduate level. Same as having a common corpus of basic science knowledge. Same as with professional code of ethics. Etc.
To use your own logic above, calling yourself a software ninja doesn't make you a ninja, and calling yourself a software engineer doesn't make you an engineer. It might be legal, but it's crass.
At your specific institution. Every school has different curriculum, both within the engineering programs themselves, and when compared to other schools. There is no unified curriculum nor is there one unified thing that all engineers, regardless of their schooling, would know because I'm sure, at one school or another, that one thing would not be taught.
And what, exactly, is so crass about it? As I said, it's just a goddamn title. A made up word used to describe yourself. There's nothing inherently disrespectful about using a title. It doesn't instantly diminish the title of every other engineer on the planet just because someone decided to call themselves an engineer without getting a B.AS. I could call myself the Queen of Rotunda, my made up domain. That doesn't suddenly mean that I'm disrespecting Queen Elizabeth, or any other queen in the world.
The whole point of having ABET accredit programs is to standardize a basic body of knowledge. Curricula in mechanical, chemical, electrical, and biomedical all include solving DEQ and PDE systems. Solving those without Laplace transforms is cruel, once the basic principles are understood of course.
If it's just a goddamn title, then you wouldn't be so insistent on using it. You want to use it because it implies a level of education and professionalism. It's crass to use the title because there is such a thing as software engineering, and the people most strongly insisting to use the title don't practice it. Like I said, you can legally use it, but licensed engineers are rolling their eyes when your back is turned.
> there is such a thing as software engineering
Which differs from place to place, yes. Not every program has been accredited but still provide software engineering degrees, perhaps with elements that would not be found in another's curriculum.
> and the people most strongly insisting to use the title don't practice it
Just because you don't have an accreditation does not mean you "don't practice it".
> Like I said, you can legally use it, but licensed engineers are rolling their eyes when your back is turned.
Good for them. They can roll their eyes all they want, it doesn't make them more right to do it.
ABET does accredit international programs.
Some international programs. They don't have nearly enough capacity to accredit every single international engineering program all over the world. I'm sure they have the major ones down, but there's plenty that are probably not which still teach engineering.
> Engineer is a licensed profession, like physician or lawyer.
The license only gives you the right to call yourself a Professional Engineer. Like I said before, unless it is illegal to call yourself an engineer without being a PEng and being licensed, then the "licensed profession" part of it really does not matter. A company can require you to be a PEng in order to receive an "engineer" title in your role, but there is still nothing, short of law that prevents you from using it yourself.
> like physician or lawyer.
And they're both different from engineer, because those licensed professions are actually legally enforced, whereas "engineer" is not legally enforced everywhere.
This all varies between states, but in general, if you for example started a software consulting firm called Vlad Engineering and the principals were not licensed, your local licensing board would likely have beef with you. If you were a software engineer at Vlad Consulting you would probably be okay.
The bottom line is that it's tricky to navigate, and so it was recommended at my school we avoid using engineering anywhere unless we had our PE license.
Civil?
You can walk up to Woz and tell him he wasn't an "engineer" when he designed the original Apple hardware, but you can't possibly expect anyone with a clue to take you seriously.