Overview
In this career, your responsibilities may include:
- Helping environmental engineers find and implement ways to prevent and clean up environmental pollution.
- Field work including set up, testing, and operation of equipment used in pollution clean-up or prevention; collection of air, water, and soil samples; inspecting facilities for compliance with environmental regulations; and arranging safe disposal of hazardous waste.
- Lab work including analysis of samples collected in the field and conducting inventory and ordering of lab supplies.
- Specializing in implementing existing engineering technology, rather than developing new concepts.
Both technicians and technologists work as part of a team with engineers and with each other.
Job Titles
In your job search, you may find listings for this career under different titles. You can find some examples of these, as well as more information about this career, at Career One Stop.
Academic Requirements
Technicians typically need an associate degree in engineering technology, and technologists typically need a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology. Note: you CANNOT become licensed as a Professional Engineer (PE) with a bachelor’s degree in engineering technology.
Obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering would allow you to work as an Environmental Engineer, if you do not already have the U.S. equivalent of a professional engineering bachelor’s degree. Your existing degree might give you advanced standing or transfer credit toward a higher degree, reducing the time it would take you to graduate.
-
Certification
Certification is not required.
-
Licensure
No licensure is required to work as an Environmental Engineering Technician or Technologist.
-
Mutual Recognition Agreement
A Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) is an agreement between two or more jurisdictions to accept the educational or professional credentials granted under each other’s authority. This means that if you graduated with a specific degree or earned certain professional qualifications in a country covered under an MRA, your credentials may be automatically recognized here in the U.S. Several professions in the U.S participate in MRAs, including accounting, architecture, and engineering.
The Washington Accord is an MRA between engineering organizations in multiple countries to recognize each other’s accredited academic qualifications. If you graduated from an accredited engineering program in one of the 22 non-U.S. jurisdictions covered by the Washington Accord, then your engineering degree may already be declared substantially equivalent to a degree from a U.S. program, and you may not need to obtain a credential evaluation. However, individual state licensing boards have the final authority on whether or not a particular degree meets their specific requirements for licensure. MRAs are not legally binding, and some states may choose not to recognize credentials covered under an MRA.
- In addition to the U.S., the jurisdictions that have signed to the Washington Accord are: Australia; Canada; People’s Republic of China; Chinese Taipei; Costa Rica; Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China; India; Indonesia; Ireland; Japan; Korea; Malaysia; Mexico; New Zealand; Pakistan; Peru; Russia; Singapore; South Africa; Sri Lanka; Turkey; and United Kingdom.
The Seoul Accord covers computing and IT degree programs, which may apply to internationally trained computer engineers and other engineers in computing-related fields.
- In addition to the U.S., the jurisdictions that have signed to the Seoul Accord are: Australia; Canada; Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China; Japan; Korea; Mexico; Taiwan, Republic of China; and United Kingdom.
For engineering technicians and technologists, there are also MRAs that cover 2 and 4-year engineering technology degrees: the Dublin Accord and the Sydney Accord.
If your degree may be covered under an MRA, always check with your state licensing board to be sure that they accept the agreement.
Contact us with any questions you might have.