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Originally Posted by sharperpe
As a note: in all States in the United States (I believe) one is required to be license by the State to use the title "Engineer".
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This is
not correct in general, and varies state-by-state. Texas is the one good example I know of a state that is that way; in Texas you have to be a PE to use the title of "Engineer", IIRC. And in my current state, "Engineer" and "Engineering" aren't regulated except in their use in company names.
Indeed, I know one specific counterexample, a good friend of mine is an "Engineer" with no degree. He drives a train.
Also, few engineers these days actually bother with become a licensed PE. There isn't that much demand (most jobs that need a PE only need a handful of them to sign off on work), and only 20% or so of engineers bother going through the whole licensing thing. It's been 10 years since I passed the EIT/FE exam, and five years of working doing PE-level work (I was in grad school in the meantime), and there hasn't been much need for me to do the exam (although doing this work this long, the practice exams are pretty easy...). The PE exam is most important for civil engineers, since they have to sign off on buildings, bridges and the like. (Note that I'm just giving the reality of the situation, not commenting on how it should be...)
But in most states, it's actually a pretty diluted title. In Minnesota, I was teaching elementary school students about career choices, and had to explain to them that I wasn't a janitor (that's what their janitorial/maintenance staff was called).