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Certification is an indication that you have a
met a prescribed level of both experience and formal education. Take away
either requirement, and certification means something different
than it does now. These requirements represent a consensus
from a wide range of health physicists. If you are not certified, it
doesn't mean you are no good, it just means you haven't jumped through a
particular set of hoops that have been set up regarding experience and
education. And lack of certification doesn't restrict you
from good jobs if you work at finding them.
We can all probably come up with of
examples of individuals who lack either formal education or experience
and who don't understand what they are missing. There are PhDs
who spend their entire working careers in academia and wouldn't know how to
operate a survey meter (I've met some). There are also
technicians who have been "swingin' a meter" for twenty years but can't write a
grammatically correct paragraph or manipulate basic equations that are the basis
for their occupation (I've met some of them, too). Individuals at
both extremes have their place in the industry and can be useful
contributors. Between the extremes, certification usually indicates a more balanced background comprised
of both education and hands-on experience at more than a minimum
level.
It is often the case that individuals
without formal degrees don't see what the big deal is about the "piece
of paper." Those who have completed a degree program see things from
a different perspective, discovering that even some of those seemingly
useless courses teach something (even if it's just how to survive a boring
course with a passing grade). When I was seven, I could see
where addition and subtraction could come in handy, but could not imagine a
situation where I would ever need to apply division or multiplication
in the real world. It turns out that I've used both a few times and that
my teachers' insistence that I learn those skills was not just so I could
be pretentious later in life. The same goes for formal education.
Finish a degree program before expounding
to the rest of us how useless it is. When you've actually been
through the program, then you can discuss its value, or lack thereof, from the
perspective of someone who knows what they are talking
about.
(I'm not responding to anyone in particular, just
sounding off about the complaint that periodically arises about
certification requirements. For those who don't like them the way they
are, I have some bad news: my guess is they are not going to change
dramatically in the near future.)
Vincent King
Grand Junction, CO
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