scripts of the video: My academic requirement interviews of professional engineer application in Ontario Canada

My academic requirement interviews of professional engineer application in Ontario Canada

 

I would like to talk about my two interviews of academic requirement of professional engineer application in Ontario Canada.

I applied for the license of professional engineer in Ontario after I had immigrated to Canada and worked in a labor job for several months.

The application is managed by Professional Engineers Ontario, that is PEO for short. After submitting the documents required by PEO, I was informed to prepare for several technical exams or an interview. To speed up the application, I applied for the interview and prepared for the exams at the same time.

Several weeks later, I attended my first interview. Upon entering the office, I found two interviewers sitting beside the big table, one to ask questions, the other one to record the interview, and also ask questions. My discipline is structural engineering of civil engineering. Interviewees were permitted to bring their project documents. But I didn't bring any. It got along well until the interviewer gave me the warp question. The word warp is spelled WARP. I had learned bending, shear, torsion, compression, tension, but not warp. Not knowing the answer, I felt nervous, and had to admit that I did not learn warp. They were silent for a while. I was depressed, thinking I would very likely fail. After a long silence, he asked me how I felt about my performance. Being lost, I told my true feeling without thinking that it's not good. He asked me to wait outside for them to discuss. After I was asked to come back, I was suggested to refresh my knowledge, and wait for their notice. I felt the success possibility was grim. Weeks later, the notice came and as expected I failed. I was informed that I could either take the exams or attend another interview.

In my coop company, I told my supervisor my interview experience. He sternly criticized me. He said I should never say not good. The supervisor was a big Russian Canadian fellow. As soon as he came into office, he turned on his radio talk show on his computer. He was listening to the talk show as he worked, laughing to the show now and then. Whenever he was in office, the show was on, no matter he was on phone or chatted and joked with the lady accountant. The boss said that his Russian and Ukrainian were both very good.

After the first failure, I still used the strategy of preparing for the exams and applying for the interview at the same time. Weeks later, I came back again. This time, I decided to bring some project documents. Compared with others', my few pages of documents were nothing. Some interviewees carried bags bulging with documents. Some even hauled big trunks. It looked like they tried to benefit from overwhelming interviewers with their documents. After I entered the interview office, they gave me the routine introduction to the interview. Then it went to the essential part. I said I brought some project drawings, and the interviewers looked through them, asking questions now and then. At last, we came to the project of a highway bridge rehabilitation. The senior of the company where the project was designed demanded compression steel bars to be used. However, limited by actual project condition, the bars could only be put some where far below the surface unlike what we normally do. In this case, under the most unfavorable load combination, the top concrete would be crushed while the steel bars' stress was still very low. That meant we could not use these bars to make the rehabilitated beam satisfy the design code's requirements. We disagreed on the issue. Another senior was sent to supervise the project directly. The second senior agreed with the first one and also disagreed with me. It's true that  under the most unfavorable load combination, after the crush of top concrete of the rehabilitated beam, the stress of compression steel bars would rise and even yield, and the beam was able to sustain the loads safely with enough compression steel bars. And the most unfavorable load combination might not necessarily appear during the bridge's design life. But I thought the design scheme was wrong theoretically. Back in China, I sometimes disagreed with seniors who audited my designs. If I found it's my negligence, I would readily accept their opinions. Otherwise I would bring relevant handbooks or standard drawings and show them. After reading the materials, they would agree with me. Sometimes they would suggest to add a bit more steel bars according to their experience and I would also agree. During the processes, I showed my respects to them, and we got along well.

Now go back to the interview. I introduced the rehabilitation design, and the disagreements between me and the seniors who supervised the design. The interviewers and I discussed the design in length. Then the interviewer asked me the company name. I said I didn't want to tell them because I was afraid of any bad effect on the company. He let me go back waiting for the interview result. Later on I accepted the letter informing that I passed the interview and the exams were waived. I therefore saved lots of preparing time and fees for the exams. I then attended and passed the Professional Practice Examination. After accumulating required one-year Canadian work experience, I accepted my professional engineer license and seal, and that's the end of the application.

By the way, I also met the same problem of compression steel bars not being able to reach their strength under ultimate limit states when I read the third edition of Concrete Design Handbook. In an example in the book, the strength of the steel bars was used directly. But I found the bars did not yield under the ultimate limit state because too much were set at the top of the beam, and the more the bars, the smaller their stress. About the problem, on January the first, 2013, I sent an email to the Cement Association of Canada who wrote the book. Now comes out the fourth edition of the book, but I don't know if they adopted my opinion. To read the file of the email and its attachment of the calculation, and the scripts of this video, please visit my blog, whose web address was listed in this video's description below.

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