Advice from Engineers

[aquaholix]

I know there are a lot on this board, thought I might get some good advice...

I received a Packaging Engineering degree (about 3 years ago) which is not an actual accredited engineering degree. I work for an A/E firm and am involved in mostly mechanical/process engineering projects. My educational backround is real weak here. Also, in order to obtain my next promotion, I need to take the FE and then PE, etc.

My goal is to go back and get a Mechanical Eng. degree, but I couldn't schedule classes to accomodate working full time (I did try), which leads me to my question...

I found an online ME degree @ Kennedy Western University. It is strictly eng. courses and is done totally online. I am very interested, but the down fall is this "college" is Licensed as opposed to Accredited. I'm not exactly sure of all the technicalities and what exactly that means though. Does anyone have any input or advice. It seems to be a solid program, but I definitely don't want to waste my time or money.

Thanks in advance for any input

[Hoff1]

I recently took my PE exam and did quite a bit of reading on the subject of what qualifies a person to take the exam. In order to take the FE or PE, you must have an ABET accredited engineering degree (basically a BSME, BSCE, etc.). The engineering technology degrees do not count. You can check out http://www.ncees.org/ for more info on the subject. Not sure about what the term licensed means in regard to accreditation. I have heard of people getting master’s degrees in engineering from Purdue over the internet. Good luck.

[aquaholix]

Thanks for the reply, hope the PE exam went well, I know that it is very difficult.

I did check, in my state you don't need any qualifications to take the FE, but for the PE you are supposed to have the ABET accredited degree, but the board can override that on a case to case basis. I don't know if I would ever take the PE though, somehow I think my career direction will change, but for now, I'd really like the education and to pass the FE. At this time I just haven't had some of the schooling required for some of the topics on the FE.

[Hoff1]

Passed the PE on the first try. Only took about 150 hours of study time (winters can be boring). FE wasn’t as hard, but I took it right before I graduated so all of the info was still fresh on my mind. It has been deteriorated by alcohol and concussions since then.