People have asked me about how the Board of Engineers, Malaysia (BEM) registration categories for Professional Engineers clashes with their work experience. Questions have come to me either when I’m presenting on the topic, during IEM meetings, and over the ‘Net.
For those not in the know, it’s a legal requirement to register with the Board within 6 months of starting work. There’s a form you fill up. You have to state that you want to be registered in the same field you graduated in.
Now, what happens when your work experience does not match your degree? Or you want to be apply to be professionally registered in a speciality of your discipline. Here are my thoughts:
- You have to work with the system. If you have clout to change the system, please do so. Don’t forget the paperwork and procedures the BEM has to establish to determine whether the PE speciality is correct, which will also be applied to those applying for the traditional categories. And compare this with other systems. The IChemE only gives Corporate Membership, it doesn’t allow you to pick a specific category.
- Do you really care what category you are registered under? The only place I’ve seen this crop up is when I have to endorse tech documents, and how many of us do that? Engineering houses would require PEs working in their own disciplines, but they would make sure their staff had the right disc. EMEPMI wouldn’t care what your PE qualifications are, or even if you were a PE.
- For those who say that their current work has nothing to do with their BEM registration category, I say: are you sure? The classical disciplines have more leeway than you think. Material selection can be ChemE, turbine maintenance can be AeroEng, corrosion inhibitor selection can be MechE. Wrap project management around all this, and you have enough tech content to take the Professional Interview.
Wata - Malaysian Oil and Gas Engineer 
yeah.. mine is electronics vs control system.