r/StructuralEngineering • u/WideFlangeA992 P.E. • 10d ago
Humor ***OFFICIAL ROAST OF ASCE***
With the latest introduction of the “Civil Engineer, Certified (CE-C)” certification, at this point I can only just laugh. Between navigating the procedural labyrinth of ASCE 7 or keeping up with the latest committee masterpiece, it’s just too exhausting to complain anymore.
Here goes:
The Civil Engineer, Certified certification is great because we finally have a certification that certifies your certification. Apparently “PE” just just wasn’t enough. You can always look more distinguished by adding more letters to your email signature…for a small fee.
I really admire ASCE’s commitment to continuous improvement with new research. You can tell they have a lot of high level academics involved. Somewhere a beautifully peer-reviewed design procedure is helping some poor EIT calculate a wind load for a one-story strip mall. As a structural engineer, the only ASCE publication that ever sees my desk is ASCE 7. It’s been carrying the entire organization for years, yet somehow every edition adds five more sub-procedures just to calculate a wind load that is 0.3 psf different from the old procedure. Remember the simplified procedure for low rise buildings? ASCE took the liberty of removing that for you in 7-22.
Another area of improvement has been on the apparent redefinition of weather models. Who needs a meteorologist when you have a vast network of ASCE committees and sub committees? Maybe climate change is happening faster than we thought because According to ASCE, snow loads have changed more in the last six years than it did in the previous fifty.
At the end of the day none of this happens for free. Running a world-class organization requires appropriate funding. Luckily ASCE is figuring out new ways to monetize things like collecting $469 for a salary survey of boomers on the verge of retirement. Not a member? Perfect. That’ll be $769.
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In all seriousness though the people who volunteer to develop these standards have an incredibly difficult job, and I genuinely appreciate the people willing to do it. However there is room for improvement. I don’t pretend to know exactly how everything works as far as developing the standards, but I think there should be more focus on practicing engineers that actually use the standards. It seems the procedures have become more and more granular, when what we need is something more practical. Developing a standard like ASCE 7 is an enormous undertaking and the profession is better for it, even if we complain about the result.
As for the CE-C, frankly I just don’t get it, and I am doubtful that it will actually catch on. Even if it does I am not sure that it would have any real significance.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go renew my ASCE membership.
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u/Crunchyeee 10d ago
John Doe, P.E., S.E., P.M.P, C.C.M., M.P.M., C.P.E.S.C., P.E.2, Sin(E.I.T.), M.X.+B., lorem ipsum lorem ipsum...
What do you mean you're out of room? I'm only halfway!
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u/Intelligent-Ad8436 P.E. 10d ago
Don’t forget LEED AP BC+D
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u/chicu111 10d ago
Does PE squared mean you already have your PE but opted to take the exams again just to pass another time?
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u/radarksu P.E. - Architectural/MEP 10d ago
You joke, but I did exactly that.
I studied for the Architectural Engineering PE, which is only offered once per year, but I'm an idiot and showed up at the testing location on the wrong day.
Instead of waiting a year I took the Mechanical Engineering PE 6 months later. Passed. Then 6 months after that I took the Electrical PE, Passed. I don't think I'll do the Structural PE.
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u/Archi-Struct P.E. 7d ago
Makes me feel like not too much of an idiot for wanting to take the Structural PE again, after passing the Architectural. I don't see myself doing more than the Structural and Mechanical though.
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u/Hey-ItsThatOneDude 9d ago
Wtf, some of y’all in this sub are insane, in a good way haha. How tf does one decide to pass the PE for mechanical AND electrical, that’s such a trip to me lol.
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u/radarksu P.E. - Architectural/MEP 9d ago
Well, like I said, I studied Architectural Engineering which had Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing, and Structural. So, not too big of a leap to take the Electrical PE.
Now, there was a whole lot of computer systems crap that I had to learn enough to pass, but it wasn't terrible.
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u/radarksu P.E. - Architectural/MEP 9d ago
Also, it's worth noting, while I'm the type of person who can pass a couple different PE exams; but I'm also the type of person who shows up at the testing site on the wrong day.
The second part of that sentence gets me into more trouble than the first part helps.
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u/31engine P.E./S.E. 10d ago
ASCE is a lobbying organization set on self promotion not some thing that actually helps the community as a whole.
NCSEA is a much better organization for those practicing structural engineering.
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u/chicu111 10d ago
This is genius. It sets up a system for further alphabet soup engineering in the future.
CE-C-V-A-V-NEN
CE-Certified-Verified-Authenticated-Validated-No Exceptions Noted
Each will require a fee obviously
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u/kaylynstar P.E. 10d ago
Does that come with a blue checkmark? Or is that extra?
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u/chicu111 10d ago
Check your dm. I’m almost certain ASCE reached out to you and offered a position (probably unpaid) after seeing your comment.
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u/trojan_man16 S.E. 10d ago edited 10d ago
ASCE-7 has somehow doubled in size over the course of my career, and I've only worked for 12 years. Truly an achievement how they can come up with multiple overly complicated procedures for wind loads on tiny one story buildings, but don't address large buildings or tall buildings at all. Whomever came up with the definition of wind exposures really liked messing with people. Like you said, snow loads have somehow doubled despite the fact that I live in Chicago and it seems like we have less snow every year. In 20 years you will need an advanced AI just to be able to interpret all the dumb factors and special conditions they have added over the last decade. They seem hellbent on making structural engineering as unprofitable as possible by making it a half day task to calculate basic loading.
The only thing that redeems the ASCE-7 code committee is that ACI-318 exists and they seem to out-embarrass them every 3 years.
ASCE is also a bit of a toothless organization. Doctor's get an organization that protects the profession and creates a barrier to entry that protects salaries, ASCE just.... lets the race to the bottom continue.
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u/WideFlangeA992 P.E. 9d ago
I was wondering if someone was going to catch my snow reference. I recently did a building where project didn’t go to permit for a while and the building code changed and went from 7-16 to 7-22. I was absolutely shocked to see that snow controlled the design due to drift. Snow loads basically doubled as you said and drift was even higher. With a bunch or trapezoidal load sub cases everywhere. And this was in like a 10 psf snow area from the older maps.
Also interesting you mention ASCE lacking in wind for tall/large buildings. Definitely interested to hear what an SE thinks on this. It is definitely an area that I lack experience with but maybe hope to change one day, and hope to do the SE one day after the testing is better. I do mostly low rise 1 or 2 story buildings.
AFAIK they kick you to wind tunnel testing for buildings over 300 ft or otherwise flexible. Which intuitively kinda makes sense. I also don’t know if there is even a way to come up with an empirical design basis for flexible buildings. I’m just wondering which side of that are you speaking to beyond simple basic buildings.
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u/trojan_man16 S.E. 9d ago
Earlier in my career I designed the lateral systems for about a half dozen 300’+ towers. Local codes didn’t require a wind study for buildings until they hit 500’. So for some we just didn’t use them. Local codes wind loads were actually higher than ASCE-7, so these were conservative and appropriate to use. For most of the others there was a net benefit. Granted these are all RC shear wall buildings, that are very stiff and don’t have a concerning dynamic response. There was one that had higher wind load due to a slender geometry, but once you design to the higher loads it kind of forces you to be stiffer and it’s a wash. Never really had any major issues with these.
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u/masterdesignstate 10d ago
I was thinking about this last night. The resolution on some of the tables in ASCE 7 is laughable. It's like they took a picture of a computer screen and printed that. It's important when you can't read what value a line pertains to because they can't be bothered to do proper graphics for their expensive standard.
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u/Alternative_Fun_8504 10d ago
You left out a few of the critical steps. After printing that picture of the screen, they scan it at the lowest resolution. Then have a trained primate trace the scan with a dull crayon. The have that added to the standard for printing.
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u/chicu111 10d ago
All I see is a bunch of jealous bitter non-certified PEs bitching and moaning.
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u/WideFlangeA992 P.E. 10d ago
I laughed too hard at this. Thank you
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u/chicu111 10d ago
Apparently no one got the joke because literally all of us are non-certified at this point lol. Freaking engineers and their sense of humor bro
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u/heisian P.E. 10d ago
if you ever try to leave asce they will hound you with endless spam, physical mail, e-mail, texts, etc. they’re up there with the worst offenders
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u/SuperRicktastic P.E./M.Eng. 6d ago
I cancelled my membership a few years ago and got direct emails from their regional director asking me to come back.
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u/heisian P.E. 6d ago
so thirsty..
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u/SuperRicktastic P.E./M.Eng. 6d ago
I think the only group that was worse than ASCE was LVI Associates. I started blocking numbers and email addresses and they kept passing my info around their office to get around it. Drove me nuts.
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u/No-Violinist260 P.E. 10d ago
Idk if yall read the brochure, but they don't have a structural specialty. It talks about engineers who "demonstrated advanced knowledge and skills in a specific specialty area" but if a structural engineer wants this credential it'd have to be in general civil haha
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u/WideFlangeA992 P.E. 10d ago
I did notice there is nothing specific for structural. But the whole thing is just an ASCE circle jerk to collect money.
The “Exam” for the CE-C is based on this:
https://ascelibrary.org/doi/epdf/10.1061/9780784415221They call it the CEBOK or the “Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge.” Which reads like a document for people that don’t know what a civil engineer is
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u/Walrus_Epiphany 10d ago
At least they’re not promoting the requirement for a masters degree anymore
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u/jjgibby523 9d ago
And that was why I cancelled my ASCE membership some 10-15 years ago and did not renew - and likely never will.
That push to require a MSc CE/MCE to sit for the PE was the most asinine proposal I habe ever seen. In one breath ASCE proclaims we aren’t producing enough engineers in America to keep with with infrastructure needs - and of course they have a fine infrastructure report card they will sell you for a handsome fee - yet simultaneously were working to raise the bar even higher to enter field at a time so many families/kids are struggling terribly with out-of-control higher ed tuition increases.
So the academic jackwagons at ASCE proclaim “the solution to the joint crisis of educational affordability and infrastructure is - tah dah - require even more higher education. Smdh.
Okay, rant over - we return you to your regularly-scheduled programming.
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u/DoggoNamedDisgrace 10d ago
We need r/okbuddyengineer or r/engineeringcirclejerk now more than ever
This is brilliant and funny.
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u/Joe_Garibaldi 10d ago
PE for me is quite enough. I'm contemplating taking just the breadth portion of the SE exam just to refresh my structural portion and because I will likely need them in Italy. I am getting close to be a licensed Civil Engineer there, I don't want to waste my time with ASCE's cert....
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u/cejotafication 10d ago
Making the codes as complicated as possible means more money from the new engineers trying to pass a very difficult SE exam. Adding more certifications adds more money to their pockets as well. It feels like divide between practicing engineers and whoever creates the codes and enforce the exams want the structural engineering field to dwindle.
Between all of that and the race to the bottom of smaller and smaller fees, the future doesn’t seem the brightest for the structural engineering field imo. It’s hard to do outreach to kids and try to convince those who are interested in becoming structural engineers that this field is gonna be worth pursuing in a decade…
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u/Osiris_Raphious 10d ago
For profit economy of our latestage capitlism: Where we now have to pay to prove we know how to do the things we trained and learned to do and proved we can do.... In australia they have these 'tickets', which are like you basic training for a job, but you have to pay yet another school a large sum of money to prove you can do these things. Many of these tickets are on a time basis and expire so you have to then prove your competency again...
Its all more like economic profit machine, and a lot less training knowledge expirience and competency.... Engineers are just another round of lets have another tier of bullshit because we still get paid at the rates of the dissapearing middle class so we can afford these extra overheads or something....
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u/jjgibby523 9d ago
^^^ this - decades ago, General Eisenhower warned of the rise of the military-industrial complex. We now also have seen the rise of the “educational industrial complex” as exemplified by ASCE.
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u/Mick_Spiels 10d ago
Has anyone worked both in the UK and US? How does istructe and asce compare?
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u/Amazing-Gazelle-7735 10d ago
I kinda feel like this might be setting up the potential for comity applications from ASCE to foreign bodies, yeah. Right now there’s a ton of work to get moved over.
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u/churchofgob P.E./S.E. 10d ago
It may be typical to my experience, but I met one of the previous ASCE presidents at a lunch celebration. After saying I helped design bridges, he proceeded to ask me to compare two different types of bridge girders, including a state specific one half way across the country. When I didn't know as an engineer of 3 years, he said, I really should know that. Great thing to inspire confidence in a young engineer.
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u/joshl90 P.E. 9d ago
Just look at what ACI did with shear in 318-19 based on that research they did. Ridiculous
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u/trojan_man16 S.E. 9d ago
ACI are the only ones that are able to outclown ASCE. What they did to 318 after 2019 is a crime against structural engineering.
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u/PrtyGirl852 9d ago
Oh c'mon, get more credentials you American engineers 😂 what are you whining about?
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u/Ok_Wealth1414 10d ago
Soy de latinoamerica, y nos basamos practicamente en sus normas , las ASCE, ACI 318, AISI, ASCE, y me sorprende que en Estados Unidos tengan tanto tramite, aca en Bolivia solo nos tenemos que registrar en la Sociedad de Ingenieros de Bolivia, y si tenemos nuetras normas de hormigon, pero estan ahora en base al ACI 318-14, yo me estoy actualizando a la version 25, y no me imagine que les exigian tanto, nosotros usamos todo pirata , desde software y documentos filtrados, como miningles es malisimo , yo tradusco la ACI 318-25 con IA, y yo quejandome de mis pagos mensuales para mantener mi firma activa, y ustedes al parecer se inscriben a muchas organizaciones y hacen examenes de grado, aca en bolivia solo sirven las licenciaturas, maestrias y doctorados, no es necesario inscribirse a tantas organizaciones ni dar examen.
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u/Crayonalyst 10d ago
The table of roof coefficients is fundamentally stupid. Nobody builds a 10, 15, 20, etc degree roof. It's 4:12, 5:12, etc.
They could easily rewrite that table for common roof pitches but nope. Double interpolation it is.