4 ms·

Up until now, the University has served a dual purpose of education and certification. I wonder if in the future, that will be split. Maybe the place where you

Up until now, the University has served a dual purpose of education and certification. I wonder if in the future, that will be split. Maybe the place where you study, and the place that tests are certifies your competency in the subject are two different entities. Medicine, engineering, accounting, law all have some sort of this split where it is actually a different entity (medical board, bar, etc) that certified your competence.

bigmattystyles 4y ago
Other than civil engineering, I don't think that's true in the US for engineering. Happy to be corrected though.
- dhosek 4y ago
  When I wanted to switch from doing PHP/Perl programming to Java, I found getting the Java certification was a helpful thing for getting that first job. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the certifications in general as a means of anything, but it does serve to open doors which might be hard to open otherwise. I have to imagine that this sort of path isn’t unique to myself.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  The Professional Engineer certification exam covers a lot more than just civil engineering. https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/ https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/
  - sarchertech 4y ago
    That's true but most engineers outside of civil engineering don't bother with it.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  It's less common in the other fields (where an engineer's decisions are less likely to involve life-risking decisions, or enormous amounts of public money), but the Professional Engineer certification is certainly a thing in the other fields. In fact, it's ambiguous at least in my state whether it is legal to run a business offering "engineering" services in those fields without a PE on staff.
willcipriano 4y ago
You typically can't take the bar, or get certified by a medical board without the degree first so they still function as gatekeepers.
- dhosek 4y ago
  When I watched the Perry Mason series on HBO a couple years ago, I was a bit surprised when Perry went from being an investigator working for a lawyer to being a lawyer himself without going to law school and was somewhat surprised (although in retrospect, it should have been less surprising) that law school as such is a very recent invention (although it was hard to find the exact date(s) of the transition). I have a vague notion that in some states you don’t need a law degree to sit for the bar exam (or at least that was the case a few years ago).
  - toast0 4y ago
    > I have a vague notion that in some states you don’t need a law degree to sit for the bar exam (or at least that was the case a few years ago). It looks like that's still the case, including in California, where Mr. Mason practices. Of course, word on the street is California's bar exam is the toughest in the nation.
    - selectodude 4y ago
      they got rid of open Bar exams in California pretty recently, too. Need to spend four years working as an apprentice in an attorney's office now.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        Meanwhile lawyer services are often ruinously expensive for the lower rungs of society. Allowing lawyers to control the supply of lawyers is a big mistake.

bigmattystyles 4y ago

Other than civil engineering, I don't think that's true in the US for engineering. Happy to be corrected though.

dhosek 4y ago
When I wanted to switch from doing PHP/Perl programming to Java, I found getting the Java certification was a helpful thing for getting that first job. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the certifications in general as a means of anything, but it does serve to open doors which might be hard to open otherwise. I have to imagine that this sort of path isn’t unique to myself.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
The Professional Engineer certification exam covers a lot more than just civil engineering. https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/ https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/
- sarchertech 4y ago
  That's true but most engineers outside of civil engineering don't bother with it.
InitialLastName 4y ago
It's less common in the other fields (where an engineer's decisions are less likely to involve life-risking decisions, or enormous amounts of public money), but the Professional Engineer certification is certainly a thing in the other fields. In fact, it's ambiguous at least in my state whether it is legal to run a business offering "engineering" services in those fields without a PE on staff.

willcipriano 4y ago

You typically can't take the bar, or get certified by a medical board without the degree first so they still function as gatekeepers.

dhosek 4y ago
When I watched the Perry Mason series on HBO a couple years ago, I was a bit surprised when Perry went from being an investigator working for a lawyer to being a lawyer himself without going to law school and was somewhat surprised (although in retrospect, it should have been less surprising) that law school as such is a very recent invention (although it was hard to find the exact date(s) of the transition). I have a vague notion that in some states you don’t need a law degree to sit for the bar exam (or at least that was the case a few years ago).
- toast0 4y ago
  > I have a vague notion that in some states you don’t need a law degree to sit for the bar exam (or at least that was the case a few years ago). It looks like that's still the case, including in California, where Mr. Mason practices. Of course, word on the street is California's bar exam is the toughest in the nation.
  - selectodude 4y ago
    they got rid of open Bar exams in California pretty recently, too. Need to spend four years working as an apprentice in an attorney's office now.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      Meanwhile lawyer services are often ruinously expensive for the lower rungs of society. Allowing lawyers to control the supply of lawyers is a big mistake.