Key Considerations When Describing Activities In PEO Experience Record

 Before you know about the PEO Experience Record and how to describe activities, you must become familiar with experience requirements.

Therefore, we have written this article to let you know about the requirements and how to describe your activities. Besides that, we will also tell you how to create a PEO Experience Record.

Requirements:

You need to show a minimum of 48 months of acceptable, verifiable acceptable experience. Besides that, you need to keep in mind that 12 months of that experience must be attained in a Canadian jurisdiction under the supervision of a licensed professional engineer.

You may be given a maximum of 12 months of experience credit for a post-graduate engineering degree or degrees in the same engineering discipline as your undergraduate degree.

You may be qualified for up to 12 months of pre-graduation engineering experience on the condition that the experience is attained after completing half of your undergraduate studies, and that it is documented and accepted by your supervisor.

How to create the Experience Record?

Your Experience Record must provide sufficient information, so we advise you to organize your record in the following way:

1.   Complete the Experience Record Form, which must be completed with the company, location and employment date (month and year). Periods of absence from employment (unemployed, travelling) must be with dates; and

2.   Each position you are reporting about must give the authority a small paragraph in which you describe your job responsibilities, highlighting the engineering duties; and

3.   Give a convincing description of how the work experience you earned fulfills each of the five criteria (practical experience, application of theory, management of engineering, knowledge of the social implications of engineering and communication skills).

Things to remember when describing your engineering activities:

Following the below-listed three tips will help you describe your engineering activities in the best way possible:

You should keep your mind on what you did as it relates to each of the five engineering criteria. When you describe your PEO work experience, you should include not only what you did, but you should also include how and why you did it. For that, use the format ‘I did…by means of …to..’.

You have to be very specific about what you did as opposed to the work of the team. For example, ‘I determined the head load…’.

It’s a must for you to provide the authority with sufficient information about the complexity of the situation.

Acceptable engineering experience:

Satisfactory engineering experience is something that complements your academic engineering training and builds on the knowledge that you earned in university. Activities must consist of engineering design, design review/modifications or problem-solving that needs engineering analysis. The experience must also provide for the development of judgement, responsibility, communication skills and self-confidence.

The below-listed are the five elements of satisfactory engineering experience for licence purposes. A huge amount of exposure to the first two, ‘Application of Theory’ and ‘Practical Experience’ is compulsory while a reasonable exposure to the remaining elements is enough. A complete lack of exposure to many of these mentioned areas may leave the applicant ineligible for licensure.

Application of Theory: design, analysis, synthesis, devising testing methods and implementation methods.

Practical experience: function of components as a part of a larger system, practical engineering limits, the importance of time in the engineering process, laws, regulations, understanding and knowledge of codes, and standards.

Communication skills: oral presentations, written work and presentations to the general public.

Social implications of engineering: determining the importance or benefits of the engineering work to the public, putting appropriate safeguards in place, the relationship between the public and engineering activity and the role of regulatory agencies.

Management of engineering: scheduling, planning, budgeting, project control, supervision and risk assessment.

All of the above-listed factors are taken into consideration when evaluating the final Experience Record and the application for licence. The simple passage of time is not enough; the quality of the experience is very important.