Edited to correct typos!


That's interesting and, now I think about it, reminds me of the part of my career when I was I.Eng and not yet C.Eng, which suddenly suggests a different take on the "old boys club" perception than has been evident in either this thread, or that on reinvigorating I.Eng.


Bear wth the following rant, which I was planning to post among other reactions in that other thread, but I outline it here purely as a prelude to my sudden realisation, to set the scene for it.


One of the big issues that I took issue with on that other thread was this suggestion, by certain contributors that C.Eng members are part of an old boys club, and I felt this was unfair, making assumptions about people's motives that were not appropriate to make without evidence, or discussion with them to understand their motives (in fact, I should be saying our motives). 


The thing I fully acknowledge, as several of us have already, is that there is a perception out there that this is the case, but, from all dealings and discussions I've had with other C.Eng members, I feel that it is an unfounded perception, in the IET at least, and that most C.Eng, and most older active members, are truly motivated by the desire to pay back, at the advanced stages of their career, to the profession that they are part of and that, in their time, has provided them with the support and mentoring that they now hope to offer to others who are at earlier stages of development, but also, to find a way to remain active and fulfill their own CPD needs. Naturally, those who are fully or partially retired will have both more time to do this, and more motivation, so it can create an impression of institute activity being dominated by older members. But that doesn't mean it's motivated by any desire to form an old boys club.


I therefore took exception to posts that simply made these assumptions about their motivations and promoted what I see to be a myth as if it were established fact. Frankly, it felt like some of the awful Facebook malignment of people with little or no knowledge of them that has become prevalent, and frankly smacks of age discrimination, and thus a breach of the ethical codes on diversity and protected characteristics. Furthermore, it is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in that, if the perception is widely spread among younger engineers, and as a result they fail to pursue either membership or registration so do in fact create an institute with a steadily increasing proportion of older members, and a registration profile that becomes steadily older.


So, my sudden realisation arises from memory of a very similar scenario to that described by Lee. At that time (around 1998) I joined an engineering consultancy as I.Eng. I took a senior position (initially lead telecoms engineer for my office, but very quickly moving to Technical Director and Professional Head, first nationally, then Internationally. 


Because the company, like most engineering consultancies, was dominated by Civil Engineers, and they all considered C.Eng an essential requirement, especially as they were often called on to sign off calculations and engineering opinions for structural stability, etc. Consequently, I hit some surprise and initially resistance for the fact that I should occupy such a senior position whilst being a mere I.Eng without a degree. In honesty, I believe that this was what created the strongest motivation for me to correct the situation as soon as I was able using the mature candidate route that was the only non-degree route to C.Eng at that time. In practice, if it were in my nature to be so (which it isn't) I could have been quite smug about this some two years down the road when I was appointed to the International Professional Board, which made me one of the 6 most senior engineers in this 3000 strong company and which gave me the responsibility to review the professional practice and standards of those very people who had formerly looked down their nose at me, and present them, in many cases, with improvement plans and targets!


The point of all this, my realisation, is that perhaps, in reality, the old boys club exists not within the institute(s), or even the profession as a whole (though these experiences do make me wonder about Civil Engineers and the ICE) but within certain types of company/organisation, and without a doubt, I feel that multi disciplinary engineering consultants would generally be high among the "guilty parties".


So, given that several of us acknowledge the perception and feel a need to do something about it, maybe this is where we should be looking first, wth the important point that we probably should be promoting the benefit of making registration a requirement, but importantly, to try to counter any tendency to turn it into an old boys club, but also to promote the point that C.Eng is only one of the registration grades, and that the most appropriate one should be selected, rather than always requiring the highest level (C.Eng)


Thoughts?

Roy,

totally in agreement - my only observation is quote 'always requiring the HIGHEST level - CEng'


I don't have the answer to the issue, but, how do we lose the Two Ronnies 'Class System Sketch' with John Cleese subconscious (or indeed deliberate) reference to the different registration categories in a hierarchy. If only we could!


Regards

Mike

I could point out the Class System Sketch predates the Two Ronnies by a decade - I think is was on TW3  (That Was The Week That Was), though it might have been The Frost Report. However Roy's comments got me thinking. He talks about the "old boys" club perception but I also got to thinking how do we know how prevalent that is? There is a lot of comment on this aspect on other threads as Roy mentions but it may be a very small but vocal minority. I have certainly come across it on many occasions in print but I can't recall ever meeting with an individual who had that opinion. If this is the case it may be that it is an easier issue to deal with than we first thought, or it may be that as most of my encounters are with IET registrants that Roy's comment about it being more of an issue in some other PEIs is valid (in which case tackling it becomes much more difficult).

As this is a discussion forum it is difficult to organise an investigation but if anyone has valid anecdotal evidence (along the lines of Roy's experience) to shed light on this it would be valuable in identifying where efforts need to be made to rectify this assumption that I am sure, at least within the IET, is unfounded.

Alasdair

Maybe its just a UK thing, but I've never understood the "old boys club" viewpoint.


Here in Gibraltar, it seems genuinely desirable (hence my previous comment on salary differences). I've seen it as a bit of a saviour one respect.


As I only have a HND, that alone I've seen is looked down upon - despite the fact part of my job is to review and correct the numerous errors made in designs by people with BEng's (including the company I spoke about before, ironically). I view the IEng as a bit of a saviour in the sense its a sort of 3rd party accreditation and confirmation that your knowledge and experience is to BEng level or above. I don't have the time to do a top-up course to BEng, so obtaining IEng is a much more convenient (if not preferable) thing to obtain.

I've always wondered what the average age of someone obtaining IEng was, and im surprised to see its out numbered against CEng by such a large scale - I assumed most would go from one to the other after additional experience/promotions had been obtained after IEng.


On of the things I found when research IEng and CEng etc, was the lack of clarity as to what exactly difference was beyond academic requirements. I could only come to conclusion it was down to experience in senior roles, such as management.


Also, I have to ask. What is an "apprentice degree"? I've always known the two to be two different things.

Alasdair,

i concur entirely, and that was the reason i took exception to certain posts that stated it as a definite fact, making assumptions about people's motivations, and worse still, propagating the myth with the result of fewer younger engineers pursuing membership or registration, and so creating a self fulfilling prophecy in respect to the age profile, though still maligning the motivation. 

However, Lee's post prodded my memory to the only occasion I've encountered it, and that was associated with a particular employment environment, not the institute itself.


Regarding the cost thing, I wasn't necessarily trying to promote a distinction between levels of registration per se, though I don't personally believe there's anything won't with distinguishing between levels of responsibility and practice that individuals have demonstrated they are able to operate at - it's natural career progression - but my point was that we need to discourage employers from seeing selection criteria that exceed the needs of the role - the automatic selection of C.Eng as the criterion when I.Eng would be perfectly suitable.

I couldn't agree more Lee, in fact your academic qualification exceeds mine, as mine is HNC. To me, that is the value of both I.Eng and C.Eng as they assess the bigger picture Blyth of knowledge gained on the job or any other way, and of how you actually practice as an engineer - a far me valuable benchmark than any academic qualification

As for old boys club, i think, overall, it is a myth, but there may be some pockets in certain working environments - i definitely don't believe it exists within our institute, or the engineering profession as a whole (with that slight reservation, based on my own experience, when it comes to Civil Engineers - but even that may be unfair, and is purely my experience, around 20 years ago, in one specific environment.

Roy, yes, you're quite right in all respects, and hopefully my other post has clarified the point I was trying to make as it would appear that, in the interests of brevity, I must have worded it badly as you and others appear to have understood it to mean almost exactly the opposite of what i intended.

Like Andy, I've come to the point where, though, as you know, I'm personally not in favour of trying to build the value (or perception of value) of I.Eng, I am not averse to your idea of merging the two and scrapping the tiers created, and acknowledge that it may well be an easier goal to achieve, but do long as we do have both registrations in place, I'm keen to discourage employers from demanding C.Eng when I.Eng is perfectly suitable