| I'm not sure that accreditation is so widespread. Most engineers don't get licensed. Most math majors (myself included) don't take the actuarial exams. Many people doing math and engineering related work (and programming) have degrees in the physical sciences (again, myself included). Engineers have an "industrial exemption," where they can work without a license, if they do engineering for an employer. Rather than having things designed by licensed engineers, the work is completed, and then a licensed engineer signs off on it. Design review is often outsourced. For instance when we're ready to ship a product (an electronic measurement instrument), we hire a testing firm to approve the design. Better watch what you ask for: If you look at the actual work that licensed engineers do, most of us would say that it's incredibly repetitious and boring -- basically poring over someone else's work all day long. I'd go nuts. I also couldn't be a patent lawyer for that reason. On the other hand, it's well paid and secure. A relative of mine had a long and rewarding career as a licensed nuclear power plant operator. In practical terms, he was a project manager. New things are developed and become widespread before professional bodies can even react. I learned about microcomputers under the mentorship of my physics professors, while the CS department at my college was 100% mainframe focused. The CS majors laughed at my "toy computer." The early pioneers of Embedded Systems were a hodgepodge of scientists, engineers, hackers, and so forth. How long would industry have waited for a certification in Embedded Systems? I think the multi-day-long technical screens are a separate issue. Tech companies have gotten themselves utterly freaked out about the terror of hiring the wrong person. Other industries don't have the same problem because they don't follow the same trends, and it could change overnight if tech companies get sick of it. |
Both the SOA and the CAS recently changed their exam process to include things like various predictive modeling and clustering techniques. The SOA decided to extend the number of exams and the CAS decided to make it a separate certification.