Continuing Education: Make It Count
About 40 engineering licensure jurisdictions in the U.S. now require continuing professional development for renewal of PE licenses, and most professional engineers are now regularly accumulating professional development hours, or PDHs.
The rules in almost every state are flexible, and purposely so. Flexibility is required in terms of content, format, and providers because engineering practice is so different among engineering disciplines, practice areas, and specific work roles that anything other than great flexibility would place restrictions that would limit the usefulness of continuing education.
Lifelong learning is critical in an engineering career. On an on-going basis, what you know needs to be revamped. And the rate of technological change is increasing over time. While 15 hours per year is likely not adequate to allow you to remain abreast of technological change in your discipline, continuing education can be part of that process. Continuing professional development provides an excellent opportunity to grow professionally in areas that are related to one’s professional practice. It is an investment in each engineer’s time, and the individual’s or employer’s money. The time and money need to be invested wisely. Over the course of a 30 or 40 year engineering career, continuing education can make a difference in a professional engineer’s skill set, but only if that investment of time and money is properly focused.
But many engineers are wasting this opportunity. Continuing education programs have grown in most states in response to professional engineers’ need to “get PDHs”. General continuing education offerings in technical topic areas are often decidedly on the “light side,” and rooms are often full of engineers of disciplines entirely different from the topic area and who are there just “getting PDHs.” This is a wasted opportunity.
Most continuing professional development sessions present evaluation forms to those attending. Do yourself and your profession a favor: If a session appears to be “light-weight” or of little use to your engineering practice, say so in a constructive fashion on the evaluation form. This can help improve offerings.
Continuing education opportunities in engineering ethics or in management (general, administrative, risk, project, etc.) and other similar topics can apply across the board to all engineering disciplines. In technical topic areas, make it count. Focus on areas within or related to your practice, where growing your knowledge base will pay dividends in your professional practice. It might be a better investment to attend a national or regional conference in a related discipline area to attend presentations on cutting-edge topics. Don’t sit through presentations unrelated to your practice area. It can be a waste of your time and money, and a missed opportunity to grow professionally.
The best way to assure that continuing education counts is to plan it out ahead of time. You, with the help of your mentor early in your career, should think about topic areas that would help further your capabilities and look for high quality opportunities in those topic areas over time. A conscious and focused effort in planning your long term continuing education will go a long way toward furthering your career-long professional growth. And that growth is critical to professional success.
Think about it. Don’t just scramble to get PDHs when time is short.
Editorial input on this item was provided by Bernard R. Berson, P.E., F.NSPE and L. Robert Smith, P.E., F.NSPE.
