Only if you're a certified Engineer.
I studied Software Engineering, and I'm accredited by the Institute of Engineers in Australia.
I studied Software Engineering, and I'm accredited by the Institute of Engineers in Australia.
Basically, in software in US, you can be an "engineer" and not get in trouble if you are not.
In many countries (not sure about the US), it is illegal to call yourself an engineer, regardless of what discipline it is.
In Canada, various provincial bodies (PEO in Ontario) regulate the use of the title "engineer", including derivatives of it such as "software engineer". [0] Some of this might seem heavy-handed (see objection to the MCSE term[1]) and I used to think so, until seeing various articles like this one.[2]
Having the term regulated is useful in establishing a minimum or baseline of knowledge that one has to have. To call oneself an engineer without having had the common/basic education in various topics like calculus, linear algebra or statistics is at best misleading, since an accredited engineering program would have provided exposure to such topics. Imagine having a conversation with an engineer who did not understand the difference (or was not even aware of the difference) between mean, median and mode when it came to categorizing request-response times? I'm not trying to knock on self-learning as it's a valuable skill to have, just the concept of title inflation.
There are exceptions, of course. For example, someone with a Comp. Sci degree would likely possess the requisite knowledge and be equivalent to someone with a software engineering degree in the profession, and this is where perhaps the actions of PEO et al. are a bit overbearing.
0. http://www.peo.on.ca/index.php/ci_id/2266/la_id/1.htm
http://engineers.texas.gov/da/da021512.html
They were fined for using the term "foundation engineer". From a quick search it looks like California is one state where you're not allowed to use it if you're not licensed. I'm guessing a number of people are actually in violation of this, but are unlikely to be fined unless it's reported.
I cant see any Uk government actually having the will to pass any laws enforcing this the number of STEM graduates in parliament and the house of lords is shockingly low
They also need to rescue Apprentices form its use by unskilled employers no Tesco you cannot have a Apprentices in shelf stacking to dodge paying the minimum wage.
Would it be better for the industry (and society in general) if the titles of "doctor", "lawyer" or "accountant" weren't as regulated/protected? Should we care if people are annoyed that they can't self-label themselves as one of these titles?
That was my point entirely.
I did study all of those things, my degree was under the faculty of Engineering, and the engineers institute of Australia agreed that I do meet the requirements to call myself an "Engineer" - with all that means.
The rest of my comment was just elaborating on what I imagined you'd meant by your comment, to hopefully detract from your downvoters.
You obviously have no understanding of the different between a CS degree and a Software Engineering Degreee. For starters, mine was a full year longer than regular CS. I did engineering Math the entire time with the other Engineers, and I did courses like digital electric design and digital signal image processing that the CS'ers didn't.
It's like a CS degree on steroids.
And you also haven't explained why a slightly greater focus on traditional engineering/math is relevant to employers.
Not really. If you've got a CS or SE degree you are certainly an engineer. If you've built systems and worked in the industry solving difficult problems you are an engineer.
In the US we don't need an expensive piece of paper telling us what we're qualified to call ourselves.
EDIT: To be clear I'm referring to software engineering. Not all engineering. I thought that was obvious based on the context of the post but I guess not.
I don't really follow this argument, since it isn't like all the 'certified' engineers are interchangeable. You would have just as many problems if you hired an electrical engineer to build your bridge as you would if you hired a non-certified software developer to do it. Are people really worried about software developers trying to illegally build building?
I mean, we don't legally limit who can call themselves an engineer in the US, but you still need certifications to actually BUILD something that requires engineering work. That seems like a much more effective control than limiting who can call themselves engineers.
People have been taken to court for calling themselves engineers if they're not officially licensed. This is why the MCSE is no longer an acronym as there was a court case about it. There's a few kinds of engineers that don't have to be licensed as they pre-date the law (e.g., stationary engineers who take care of things like boilers), but they typically have their own regulatory organizations.
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/regs/english/elaws_regs_900...
See section 77. Generally, it often revolves around 77.2.i,
"A practitioner shall, regard the practitioner’s duty to public welfare as paramount"
One could see a conflict come up between the company's and the public's interest. For example, you get asked to write the code in a way that takes less time, but could expose the client's data to hackers.
I agree that a person could be placed in a situation where they were asked to do something against the public welfare. But I don't see how reading this rule in a course would actually help the person making the decision.
For example, I've been in situations where security issues came up. Like most real life matters, it was a matter of judgement, and the tradeoffs were complex. But I went above and beyond what was expected, to do things the best way possible. I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, and because I take pride in my work. But I didn't need to take a course or get a certificate to know this.
If I were designing human medical trials, then I agree that a course in ethics would be in order. But all aspects of life involve ethical choices, and I don't think that you need to be an expert in philosophy to make the right choices.
So, it's often good to examine a complex situation from the viewpoint of multiple ethical systems and make a decision based on that. That's what courses in ethics do. They teach various systems and present situations to examine.
A lot of people might go with consequentialism, which is basically, "The end justifies the means." Utilitarianism is essentially a subset of this.
So, yes you have some ethical system that you follow, but if you're only looking at a situation from that viewpoint, you might miss out on an alternative course of action.
Without this, it's arguable that having an "engineering degree" (in a certain discipline, say software eng) from one university would not all be comparable to having one from another institution - thus decreasing the overall quality of the industry. I'm not saying having the standard solves all these sort of problems, but I am saying that it makes things better.
Additionally since the Bolognia process people get a degree as Bsc or Msc. in Computer Science while the older degrees do contain the title prefix "Dipl. Ing ..." (e.g. Engineer with specialization in Software Development). So while the degrees are protected the job title are basically totally random.