Becoming a Licensed Professional Engineer Part 1 of n

I’m a practicing Electrical Engineer for Sparx Engineering and I just finished the process of becoming a Professional Engineer in the state of Texas. States make their own rules but here in Texas you can’t use the term “Engineer” unless you are registered by the state OR you are employed by a registered firm, and you are supervised by a licensed engineer. Granted, if you graduated from an ABET certified engineering program, in Texas you may call yourself a “Graduate Engineer” without being registered. After going through the process to become a registered engineer, it bothers me when I hear someone call them-self an engineer when they fail to meet these qualifications. The process to become an engineer isn’t an easy one and it’s my belief that the title should be respected, as with all other professional titles for that matter.

Sparx Engineering is a registered firm in the state of Texas and to be honest, if they didn’t place such a high value on becoming a professional engineer, I might not have gone through with it but afterwards I’m glad I did and I’m glad Sparx pushed me to do so. The license ship to become a professional engineer is not an easy process but it is very fulfilling. As one of the owners of Sparx said to me “he felt like a better engineer after going through it” and I feel the same way. It took me 3 to 4 months to go from start to finish so my rhetorical question is how many big career changing licenses can you obtain in only 3 to 4 months? Plus you get some cool initials after your name. I’m looking forward to going into more details about the steps for becoming a licensed professional engineer in a following blog post. Plus I have some really good study material links for the electrical engineering exam. So stay connected to our site for upcoming information.

Daniel Nichols, P.E.

Link to Part 2 of this series