I remember when I was in high school, I had some friends who studied karate, and they were like, "I finally made it to black belt." Meaning, they were a master now. They were 16 years old, and had maybe 3 years experience. In Taiwan, in the 1890s... uh, they would not be regarded as black belt.
Even then it was clear that there was a lot of "belt inflation" happening. The karate schools like the children to feel like they are making progress, so every 6 months the children got a new belt, until finally they were black belts.
It seems like the same thing has been happening with engineering titles.
Fwiw, black belt was basically when you actually started learning. Everything up until then was really just gaining what you needed in order to actually start learning. IIRC the “black” represented the dirt (effort) accumulated over time.
We are both wrong. I was thinking "Island south of Japan" and I said Taiwan, but I should have said Okinawa, which was conquered by Japan and part of the Japanese empire in the 1890s:
Even then it was clear that there was a lot of "belt inflation" happening. The karate schools like the children to feel like they are making progress, so every 6 months the children got a new belt, until finally they were black belts.
It seems like the same thing has been happening with engineering titles.