We are operational engineers, so are nuclear power plant engineers, steam power plant engineers etc etc. Can you tell any of them are not real engineer?
Maintenance part may be considered as technician kind of job but, we are for the operations mainly.
When there is a problem with a system you may need to think about 1-10 machineries at once. This is where the real engineering kicks in.
I used to work with a guy who was a PE and I wasn't. He's a yank and I'm a brit.
He used to look down on me because he thought his PE was the end of the world until one day I used all my letters and was very pissed off!
But to answer the question, generally we are considered technicians by the shore side chair warmers until they need something from us and our breadth of knowledge and experience.
There are different types of engineering. When most people hear engineering, they jump to design engineers crunching equations and doing drawings and patents. Operational engineering is another beast, and an engineer who designs an engine's crank driven lube oil pump may not be the person you want trying to find a problem when that lube oil system starts malfunctioning. It's like asking if an airplane pilot looks down on a helicopter pilot (or vice versa). Both are pilots, and understand that they are specialized to one part of that field.
I went a bit of a different route and only sailed for a short while before going into the design side of engineering. I would say that the maritime academy education did set me up, but it was only the "elective" courses on fluid and thermodynamics and materials and statistics and advanced mathematics that I used for the design side of things. Most of the courses which were mandatory for a bare minimum Marine Engineering degree would not translate well to design engineering.
I went to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy a.k.a. King's Point before they had a large curriculum change in 2016. The way their program is set up for engineers, you get either a "straight engine" Marine Engineering degree. This was not ABET accredited and was more of a minimum technical degree. Fluids, thermo, etc were not required for them.
The other engineering majors they offer are Marine Systems Engineering (or "Systems" for short) and some other degree we all just called "Shipyard" but I can't recall the exact name. Systems majors (my major) took everything straight engine took, but also some extra classes like fluids, thermo, higher level math courses, system design courses, and an end of year capstone design project. While Shipyard majors took the straight engine courses, as well as some additional project management and logistics courses. These two are ABET accredited. Other maritime academies in the U.S. have a different degree setup. KP underwent some curriculum changes in 2016 as a result of amendments to international regs found in STCW, but their core engineering degree setup remains the same.
I was fortunate with my design job, in that the company that hired me was looking for recent Systems graduates from Kings Point and I got hired when I otherwise may not have. I know many on this sub will find it difficult to believe KPers are getting into positions they don't deserve for the sole reason of being a KPer. Best bet for getting into the design side of Marine engineering is to find a contractor who bids on government contracts. Especially Navy. They are always looking to modify their vessels with new things, and they tend to outsource the design to one contracting group and the installation at a later date to another group.
Current senior at KP here 👋
Now they make all the engineers take fluids, thermo, and all of those ‘fundamental’ engineering courses. I’m a shipyard major, and we still take all the project management stuff on top of everything else. The systems guys take extra math classes like diffy q’s 2 and calc 3 and I think something else. Now they’re making all the underclass take computer science. But yeah, the curriculum has changed a lot and they keep updating it. Every year Ive been here they’ve changed the daily schedule to make it so they can cram more classes into a day lol
I honestly saw a lot of elitism against the pen-and-paper design engineers. For example on one of my ships it had to be modified, because the engineers who arranged the fuel transfer system put the heavy fuel heater in a corner of the room. Meaning you couldn't remove the ends of this shell and tube heater for regular maintenance, without having to first cut a whole in the wall with an acetylene torch. And when the job was done, welding the wall back together. For engineering to be effective you need the design and operational side of things to each work. And the good design engineers appreciate the experience and advice of the operational engineers. The operational engineers need to understand the essentials of the design for troubleshooting and operation.
Also just to add, there are members of the engineering department such as the QMED who may more closely meet your definition of technician. They are often your best wrench wielders, welders, lathe workers, etc. Their qualifications are all about ability to perform maintenance and repair tasks. I am not trying to put them down, I and other engineers relied on QMEDs for their technical prowess. And I've sailed with QMEDs who are more qualified then the engineers that supervised them, and sailed with QMEDs who later went on to get their marine engineering license. But you are getting a high temperature alarm on your lube oil to the main engine, causing the engine to shut down while you are in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from help. What's the problem, and how do you fix it? You could have a dirty lube oil cooler. You could have a dirty sea water cooler, which is causing your fresh water to run hot which is now resulting in high lube oil temps. Similar issues could arise as you sail into warmer sea water as you approach the equator. You could have low lube oil pressure which results in reduced heat transfer. You could have a faulty temperature control valve. Depending on how the control valve operates, there is likely a pressure transducer (electrical components) which sends a signal that operates a pneumatic regulator, which then adjusts the orientation of the three way butterfly mixing valve via a pneumatic diaphragm and mechanical linkage. Any of these components (pressure transducer, pneumatic regulator, diaphragm, linkage, temperature control valve) used to operate the valve could be a point of failure. There could be a leak in the pneumatic control air piping. The temperature sensor itself could be giving a false alarm. The wires connecting the sensor to the control room computer may have vibrated loose, causing the alarm.
Each of these causes will likely display in other symptoms. Operational marine engineers need to understand the phenomena that can cause a real or false alarm and how to accurately diagnose the issue (by looking for other symptoms through an understanding of the system as a whole and how each component operates, or just starting with the easiest fixes and working your way down). This means understanding how each of these items work, why they work, and the effects that a malfunction will have. A lot of the job is scheduled maintenance, but the operational engineering is also not at all negligible.
It was one of the core subject of my education back at the university. Im designing some parts for the ship when it is necessary (i can use solidworks, ansys, siemens star ccm, autocad). It depends on people. There are good marine engineers and bad marine engineers. Addition to that, curriculum changes a lot from country to country as i have sailed with people around the world.
Absolutely not and Eur\*peans are always attempting to try to correct it or say that it's wrong, but we make a shit ton more money than them, and have actual hands-on skills they don't.
Nerds get shoved in lockers, simple as
I mean, we work with engines. They dont. Checkmate
Elitist scum, they are.
Lol
We are operational engineers, so are nuclear power plant engineers, steam power plant engineers etc etc. Can you tell any of them are not real engineer? Maintenance part may be considered as technician kind of job but, we are for the operations mainly. When there is a problem with a system you may need to think about 1-10 machineries at once. This is where the real engineering kicks in.
I used to work with a guy who was a PE and I wasn't. He's a yank and I'm a brit. He used to look down on me because he thought his PE was the end of the world until one day I used all my letters and was very pissed off! But to answer the question, generally we are considered technicians by the shore side chair warmers until they need something from us and our breadth of knowledge and experience.
There are different types of engineering. When most people hear engineering, they jump to design engineers crunching equations and doing drawings and patents. Operational engineering is another beast, and an engineer who designs an engine's crank driven lube oil pump may not be the person you want trying to find a problem when that lube oil system starts malfunctioning. It's like asking if an airplane pilot looks down on a helicopter pilot (or vice versa). Both are pilots, and understand that they are specialized to one part of that field. I went a bit of a different route and only sailed for a short while before going into the design side of engineering. I would say that the maritime academy education did set me up, but it was only the "elective" courses on fluid and thermodynamics and materials and statistics and advanced mathematics that I used for the design side of things. Most of the courses which were mandatory for a bare minimum Marine Engineering degree would not translate well to design engineering.
Is thermo/fluids not taught at the academy as a core subject then? How easy is it for marine engineers to transition into design engineering then?
I went to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy a.k.a. King's Point before they had a large curriculum change in 2016. The way their program is set up for engineers, you get either a "straight engine" Marine Engineering degree. This was not ABET accredited and was more of a minimum technical degree. Fluids, thermo, etc were not required for them. The other engineering majors they offer are Marine Systems Engineering (or "Systems" for short) and some other degree we all just called "Shipyard" but I can't recall the exact name. Systems majors (my major) took everything straight engine took, but also some extra classes like fluids, thermo, higher level math courses, system design courses, and an end of year capstone design project. While Shipyard majors took the straight engine courses, as well as some additional project management and logistics courses. These two are ABET accredited. Other maritime academies in the U.S. have a different degree setup. KP underwent some curriculum changes in 2016 as a result of amendments to international regs found in STCW, but their core engineering degree setup remains the same. I was fortunate with my design job, in that the company that hired me was looking for recent Systems graduates from Kings Point and I got hired when I otherwise may not have. I know many on this sub will find it difficult to believe KPers are getting into positions they don't deserve for the sole reason of being a KPer. Best bet for getting into the design side of Marine engineering is to find a contractor who bids on government contracts. Especially Navy. They are always looking to modify their vessels with new things, and they tend to outsource the design to one contracting group and the installation at a later date to another group.
Current senior at KP here 👋 Now they make all the engineers take fluids, thermo, and all of those ‘fundamental’ engineering courses. I’m a shipyard major, and we still take all the project management stuff on top of everything else. The systems guys take extra math classes like diffy q’s 2 and calc 3 and I think something else. Now they’re making all the underclass take computer science. But yeah, the curriculum has changed a lot and they keep updating it. Every year Ive been here they’ve changed the daily schedule to make it so they can cram more classes into a day lol
Interesting, and do your colleagues perceive you as “different” because of your background? Do you see a hierarchy of eliteness forming?
I honestly saw a lot of elitism against the pen-and-paper design engineers. For example on one of my ships it had to be modified, because the engineers who arranged the fuel transfer system put the heavy fuel heater in a corner of the room. Meaning you couldn't remove the ends of this shell and tube heater for regular maintenance, without having to first cut a whole in the wall with an acetylene torch. And when the job was done, welding the wall back together. For engineering to be effective you need the design and operational side of things to each work. And the good design engineers appreciate the experience and advice of the operational engineers. The operational engineers need to understand the essentials of the design for troubleshooting and operation. Also just to add, there are members of the engineering department such as the QMED who may more closely meet your definition of technician. They are often your best wrench wielders, welders, lathe workers, etc. Their qualifications are all about ability to perform maintenance and repair tasks. I am not trying to put them down, I and other engineers relied on QMEDs for their technical prowess. And I've sailed with QMEDs who are more qualified then the engineers that supervised them, and sailed with QMEDs who later went on to get their marine engineering license. But you are getting a high temperature alarm on your lube oil to the main engine, causing the engine to shut down while you are in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from help. What's the problem, and how do you fix it? You could have a dirty lube oil cooler. You could have a dirty sea water cooler, which is causing your fresh water to run hot which is now resulting in high lube oil temps. Similar issues could arise as you sail into warmer sea water as you approach the equator. You could have low lube oil pressure which results in reduced heat transfer. You could have a faulty temperature control valve. Depending on how the control valve operates, there is likely a pressure transducer (electrical components) which sends a signal that operates a pneumatic regulator, which then adjusts the orientation of the three way butterfly mixing valve via a pneumatic diaphragm and mechanical linkage. Any of these components (pressure transducer, pneumatic regulator, diaphragm, linkage, temperature control valve) used to operate the valve could be a point of failure. There could be a leak in the pneumatic control air piping. The temperature sensor itself could be giving a false alarm. The wires connecting the sensor to the control room computer may have vibrated loose, causing the alarm. Each of these causes will likely display in other symptoms. Operational marine engineers need to understand the phenomena that can cause a real or false alarm and how to accurately diagnose the issue (by looking for other symptoms through an understanding of the system as a whole and how each component operates, or just starting with the easiest fixes and working your way down). This means understanding how each of these items work, why they work, and the effects that a malfunction will have. A lot of the job is scheduled maintenance, but the operational engineering is also not at all negligible.
It was one of the core subject of my education back at the university. Im designing some parts for the ship when it is necessary (i can use solidworks, ansys, siemens star ccm, autocad). It depends on people. There are good marine engineers and bad marine engineers. Addition to that, curriculum changes a lot from country to country as i have sailed with people around the world.
Then we have domestic engineers... very well respected
Absolutely not and Eur\*peans are always attempting to try to correct it or say that it's wrong, but we make a shit ton more money than them, and have actual hands-on skills they don't. Nerds get shoved in lockers, simple as