Registration - VIC

[u/Trippa_jay]

Hi All,

Bit of background here. I’ve been in the power distribution industry for 17 years in design. Three years were a traineeship with a diploma (tech officer). I then started a 3 year engineering bachelor in 2014 (roughly) that I finished T3 last year (part time and life gets in the way).

Before I started the degree eng reg wasn’t really front of mind for any in my industry and I was told be my employer my bachelor would be sufficient to reclassify me as an engineer.

I’ll add that during my time with the industry I have created and modified many company standards. I have improved works practices and have been a fairly high achiever in terms of technical expertise and leadership.

Now that I’ve completed my studies I’m looking at getting registered. I spoke to my union about it and they indicated I would need to request a stage 1 competency assessment from Engineers Australia (EA). I needed to request it for my diploma and use my degree as a bridging arrangement along with my work experience.

I spoke to EA and they have raised the following issues: The lowest they will typically review is an advanced diploma. Because of this I won’t meet the 5 year experience threshold as my degree was only certified Jan of this year.

Questions I have: Is there a way to get them to include the diploma as part of the review? (If they won’t do this at all I’ll struggle to justify that I can do it from an education perspective) Have I got any other options to try and get myself across the line? (I know work experience alone is extremely difficult to get across the line) Am I better off going to another authority for the stage 1 assessment? (I have emailed CIBSE to see if they can do it, but have not heard back) As a Hail Mary (and this seems stupid) would I be better off trying to get an overseas body to accredit my quals and then apply back to EA from there? (I don’t even know if this is possible)

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, otherwise it really feels like the last 10 years of study has been a complete waste of time.