GCH query

[The Natural Philosopher]

Modesty forbids...

[Theo]

No. You get an MA assuming you have a BA and are still alive 6 years after matriculation (ie 2 years after graduation for Engineers doing the 4 year course). That's it, no further conditions required. No practicing of engineering or any other discipline is required.

442

Theo

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Well in my day a technical author was the person who wrote stuff like circuit descriptions and made sure any workshop manuals were correct for the latest production versions etc. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I think you credit them with too much sense. Each politician believes themselves, and hence can talk with conviction how they are going to fix whatever it is. The reality of course is that nobody really can control the population and what it actually does, unless you shoot and kill all the people who don't think as you do, and that has been tried often enough to, I would have thought, demonstrate that that can come back and bite you. Brian

[Adrian Caspersz]

I became Mr Beng Hons for a while, thanks to a postal mailing list snafu :-)

[Chris Green]

Yes, I (very rarely) actually use my 'Eur Ing' prefix and that can cause all sorts of hilarity! :-)

[Bob Eager]

It screwed up stuff at my employer for a bit.

[jkn]

Yes - both of those aspects are part of my consideration.

Thanks J^n

[Vir Campestris]

I thought you had a doctorate too? I toyed with the BCS for a while many years ago, but it became clear to me that because I had spent 3 years at Uni ending with a degree in Biology I would always be a second class citizen to those who had studied CompSci. Even the ones who had done a joint course. I could never ever become MBCS, just AMBCS. And I could never ever get that Eur Ing prefix which felt as though it might possibly be of some value.

40 years as a professional software engineer - and yes, I do exercise my ingenuity - doesn't count.

So I left.

Nobody has ever wanted it anyway.

Andy

[Bob Eager]

Never finished that (long story).

Wouldn't bet on it. I know someone who did the same, and ended up retiring from a major bank with lots of money.

Actually, you could. Enough experience in the industry is fine; the CS degree is just a short cut. My wife has a degree in Englsh and American Literature, and she has MBCS.

That is harder. I got it by virtue of my first degree, in electronics. But I could probably have managed it anyway.

It does. Shoo-in for MBCS I would think. EXpecially if I nominated you. But probably a bit late now!

[NY]

I started doing Elec Eng at university and had to drop out (*) after failing the second year exams and retakes. So I did the second year of a 2-year HND in Elec Eng instead at the nearby Poly. BCS were very sniffy and said with that qualification I could only ever by AMBCS. Then suddenly after a few years they changed their policy and upgraded me to MBCS without me even asking or applying.

I'm not sure how much benefit being MBCS was. I never had a job where it helped. I wonder how many recruiting agencies or employers even looked for MBCS - unless it's a job where chartered status is legally necessary, and I never rose that high.

(*) Technically it was my choice and they didn't kick me out because they offered me an alternative: take the exams again for the third time the following summer, but the syllabus was going to change and, no, I couldn't attend lectures in the revised syllabus. Given that I didn't even know why I'd failed (beyond "this used to be fairly easy, suddenly I'm struggling to keep my head above water") it wasn't a realistic option and would have delayed me a year in starting working.

[Bob Eager]

My wife got hers in 1995. By sheer coincidence, the monthly committee was considering me on the same day, and I got my FBCS at the same time.

[Tim Streater]

After finishing my CompSci postgrad, I never heard of the BCS again, either in terms of job applications, or in any conversation with my peers.

[Theo]

Seemed to me the BCS was always a poor relation to the other Institutions (IMechE, ICivilE, etc) where paper trails for competency, liability etc are somewhat stronger.

In the US you have the ACM and the IEEE, who do seem to have more of a useful function.

Theo

[Mathew Newton]

MBCS isn't the same as chartered e.g. CEng or, more typically when it comes to BCS, CITP (BCS do provide a CEng pathway too though).