The Five Professions Studied

THE OCCUPATIONAL HIERARCHY progresses by slow steps from the completely unskilled laborer to the specialist who has spent a considerable part of his life preparing for his work. Each step merges into the next and overlaps it. Somewhere toward the upper end of this hierarchy is a group of occupations that we designate 'professional'. Its boundaries are neither precise nor stable. A century ago the 'learned professions' meant medicine, law, and theology; today they include a host of other occupations; and a century hence they will include still others. These occupations are alike in that all require prolonged and specialized training and involve work that has something of an academic and intellectual flavor--no purely mechanical or commercial pursuit can qualify. They differ in almost all other respects. By common consent, the professions include pursuits as diverse as journalism and medicine, architecture and law.

While all professions require specialized training, there are sizable differences in the amount of training required and in the extent to which the requirements are formalized. Practically all professions require at least the equivalent of a college education; some require no more than that; others require the completion of professional school after college. A growing number of professions are restricted to persons 'licensed' by the state; and candidates for licensure must ordinarily satisfy minimum educational requirements and demonstrate an acceptable level of competence. In other professions not under state licensure, educational requirements are a matter of custom.

The five professions that we study intensively--medicine, dentistry, law, certified public accountancy, and consulting engineering--exemplify these differences. Most persons entering engineering have had only a college education; most persons entering medicine, a college education plus four years of medical school plus one year of internship in a hospital. Four of the five professions are under state licensure; the fifth, engineering, is not.