PE Exam a week from this Friday

College Majors Engineering Majors
21

<p>I survived! I’m doctoring an e-mail that I sent to a couple of non-engineers who asked about how it went. I may be overexplaining parts of my experience for some of y’all, but for those of you who aren’t as familiar with the PE exam, it’ll be pretty comprehensive. I’m not allowed to be specific about what was ON the exam, but I can certainly talk about the experience.</p>

<p>First things first: I have to wait… get this… FIFTEEN WEEKS for my PE exam results. I think the waiting is going to be even worse than the exam.</p>

<p>The exam itself wasn’t horrible. I flew out to California to take it. I got to go to the Los Angeles testing location, which was right near Harvey Mudd (my brother is an alumnus), so at least I knew the area. It’s open book, which is good and bad… You can take in any books that you can carry, which gives people who live near the testing location a bit of an advantage. I had to make sure that all the books I took fit in a suitcase and carryon bag, and I had to drag them all with me. I had to beg and plead with the gate agent to get her to not make me check the bags… I couldn’t imagine what would’ve happened if my bag had gotten lost; I probably had three thousand dollars’ worth of building codes and review books in there, and I never would’ve gotten through the exam without them.</p>

<p>The exam spans two days, a Friday and a Saturday. I flew in on Thursday to get everything situated. I was pretty nervous… Everything I’d heard said that you needed to study THREE HUNDRED hours beforehand to have a good chance of passing. About 60% of the people who take the test pass, 35-40% fail. Definitely not a sure thing. I prepared pretty well, and I was very familiar with my books, but I really hadn’t gotten THREE HUNDRED hours in. I’m not sure I’ve had 300 real solid hours awake and away from my desk in the past month or so. I certainly haven’t had that much time to study.</p>

<p>The Friday morning portion is 4 hours long, with 40 multiple-choice questions. Each question during the Friday morning portion can be on ANYTHING from civil engineering, from roadway design to structural engineering to soil analysis to earthquakes, wood design, wastewater treatment plants, meteorology, chemistry, pipe flow, ethics, economics, legal issues, foundations, wastewater, water supply, hydraulics, construction practices… Anything. They’re multiple choice, but they’re the kind that has several steps of calculations that you need to do in order to get to the answer. There’s a lot of holding-your-breath-as-you-hit-enter-on-your-calculator… If the answer you end up with isn’t one of the choices, then you’ve done it wrong. Or maybe you haven’t. All the questions start with, “Is the answer MOST NEARLY a, b, c, or d?”… So who knows what “most nearly” means.</p>

<p>I got through the Friday morning portion, but I was only about 80% confident about it. I just really wasn’t sure about a lot of the questions. Some of them were simple look-up, but some of them were tricky and I had to make educated guesses about them.</p>

<p>The Friday afternoon portion was the “structural depth” section. It’s rumored that the afternoon section is much, much harder than the morning section, so I was particularly anxious after how the morning went. The “depth” section really tests you on your specialty, and makes sure that you really know what you’re talking about. Again, it’s multiple choice and open book. Much to my surprise, I seem to know my stuff when it comes to structural engineering, even though I’ve been doing mostly project management for the past year or so… I flew through all forty of the afternoon questions and felt pretty good about my answers. I double-checked all the answers I got, finished half an hour early, and got to leave well before time was called. First day done!</p>

<p>The Saturday tests are better and worse… The Friday tests are made up by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying, but the Saturday tests are state-specific, and are given by the State of California. For the Friday tests, I had to do 40 problems in 4 hours each. For the Saturday tests, I had to do 50 problems in 2-1/2 hours each. So, you have to go a LOT faster, but it’s over with sooner.</p>

<p>The morning test on Saturday was “Seismic Principles”… a good test for California to have. I thought I would do okay going into it. I’ve designed several buildings in California, so I’ve had to do actual seismic design before. I did all my graduate research in seismic engineering. I’ve taken classes in seismic engineering, too. I thought I’d be okay with a general review. After taking it, though, I really think that there’s NO way that anybody, no matter how well prepared, can get through that exam in the given amount of time. I knew how to do each of the questions, but there were some that I simply didn’t have time to do. I had to guess on a good number of them. I felt confident about probably 38 out of 50, which I didn’t think was a very good percentage… But I looked it up later, and historically, you only need a 60% average to pass that particular test, so I think I did okay on it. Still, it was pretty hard.</p>

<p>The Saturday afternoon test, the last one, was the one I was most nervous about… “Surveying Principles”. I’ve always wanted to learn surveying, but I’ve not had ANY past experience with it. I bought a review book for the surveying exam, but I kept looking through it and getting bored. It was all geometry and trigonometry. I really didn’t want to spend my evening hours studying something that I could figure out independently, so whenever I tried to study it, my brain would kind of go “blaaahhhh…” and just flat-out not work. I finally gave up studying for it and just decided to try for the best but be prepared for the worst. So I got the exam, opened it up, and looked at it… And it was all geometry and trigonometry. There was stuff on there about maps that I’d learned while camping with my Girl Scout troop years ago. Even with the 2-1/2 hour limit, I finished the exam early and got to leave before the rush. I was so fatigued by that point that I figured checking my answers really wasn’t going to do a lot of good.</p>

<p>I got back to Houston on Sunday night and was able to come back to our new house and hand out candy to all the little kiddos on Halloween, which was fun, then back to work on Monday to issue about a gig’s worth of compressed PDF drawings for various projects. I think this weekend I’m going to try to schedule a spa day, get a massage and a pedicure. Do something girly. Get all this mathy-sciency stuff out of my head for a few days.</p>

<p>Anyhow, a week has passed, so it’s only fourteen more weeks of the waiting game. I think the NCEES scores will come out sooner, and it might not actually take the full fifteen weeks to get everything graded. I’ll let y’all know how I did when I find out!</p>

22

<p>Thanks for the great report! It sure sounds like you passed! I didn’t realize you had to take a test on surveying - ick! The waiting time was about the same for me, back in the dark ages. After awhile, I just stopped thinking about it! </p>

<p>I think you definitely deserve a spa day!</p>

23

<p>Ok I have been curious… Why go to California to get certified?</p>

24

<p>Congrats on feeling pretty decent about the test, aibarr. We’re all pulling for you to do well. :)</p>

25

<p>It’s hard (maybe impossible?) to get registered in California if you don’t take their test. Since the seismic design has to be so rigorous, they don’t want engineers who are in low seismic areas, such as Texas, trying to design buildings in CA. Since aibarr designs buildings there, she needs to be registered there. It’s also the best way right now to become a “Structural Engineer” (SE) in the US. That’s an evolving situation, though, that has me confused. I’m going to a local meeting in a couple of weeks to learn more about it. aibarr, do you understand it better?</p>

26

<p>A few comments about the California Civil PE exams:</p>

<p>There are three exams. If you pass one or two of the exams, but fail the others, then you don’t get a license – but you do get credit for the exams that you passed. If you have to sit for the exams again, you won’t have to retake the ones that were passed, provided that you do so within a certain time limit.</p>

<p>Most other states only use the 8-hour NCEES Civil PE exam for licensure. So if you pass that exam in California, but fail one or both of the two CA-specific exams, then you are typically still eligible for PE licensure by comity in other states – even though you won’t be a PE in CA. Other states will accept the passing NCEES exam result, and won’t care about the CA-specific exam results.</p>

<p>There are technically four exams – not three. You also have to submit an open-book “take-home” exam on CA Board policies, which can be [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.pels.ca.gov/applicants/pe_takehome.pdf]downloaded[/url”&gt;http://www.pels.ca.gov/applicants/pe_takehome.pdf]downloaded[/url</a>] from the Board’s website. Most people don’t find the take-home exam to be very difficult, but it is nonetheless a strict legal requirement. It’s best to submit the take-home exam before you get the other exam results, because then you can qualify as a PE immediately if your other exam scores are passing. Many people overlook the take-home exam requirement; this means yet more paperwork and delay before licensure, even if all of the other exam scores are passing.</p>

27

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s college admissions all over again! Roughly 4 months to find out if all the hard work you’ve done in the past 4 years has paid off.</p>

28

<p>Ohhhh, the SE confusion.</p>

<p>To be perfectly honest, it seems that nobody really understands what’s going on with structural engineering licensure and where it’s headed right now. The NCEES is doing away with the “Structural I” and “Structural II” exams, which are essentially what you take* in order to become an SE<em>, which is a step beyond</em> the PE, and which allows you to design more complicated things*. Instead of the SI and SII, they’re going to have ONE sixteen-hour exam that you’ll need to take. As it stands right now, California’s kind of looking at this new exam (which will be given for the first time in April 2011) and is trying to decide what it’ll qualify people for. Their current stance out there is that you’ll need to pass the California PE before you’re allowed to take the Structural exam. (Which is interesting, because it kind of seems that Texas has decided that if you take the Structural exam, you’re qualified to do whatever structural engineering you care to do. There’s a lot of overlap in the scopes of the California PE exam and the Structural exam–both cover seismic engineering. I think the California board is probably a little freaked at the prospect of change, and want a few looks at the new exam before they commit to anything.) Eventually, I’m pretty certain that if I want full licensure for everything I’d ever want to do, I’m going to have to sit for a second two-day round of structural exams.</p>

<p>But yes, you MUST take the state-specific exams in California in order to get registered there as a civil engineer of any type. Basically, since my husband’s an academic and it’s not really certain where we’ll end up geographically, I want to have my bases covered and not end up in a situation where I’ll have to re-test, for any reason whatsoever. Those books are too heavy to do this whole shebang again.</p>

<p>But yeah, I’ve been really struck by the parallels to how much this feels like applying to college. I submitted my exam, I’m cautiously optimistic, but I’m also preparing myself to accept whatever happens when I get the envelope in the mail. Also, much like with college admissions, a lot of people have been dismissively and exasperatedly saying, “Oh, I KNOW you’re going to pass,” just as they all said, “I KNOW you’re going to get in,” and so my knee-jerk response is to say, “Woah! It’s never a sure thing! Don’t jinx me!” It’s like, I’m no slouch when it comes to test-taking, but this isn’t a cakewalk for ANYBODY, and I don’t want it to change people’s perception of me if I fall short…</p>

<p>So we’ll see… I think I’ll do okay, but I’m not counting any chickens yet. Or thinking about counting any chickens. Or thinking about chickens, really…</p>

<p>*in general/kind of/it’s really confusing and varies from state to state</p>

29

<p>Bumping this in anticipation of results.</p>

<p>The results for the Texas exam came out today, so the clock’s ticking on California. It’ll probably take a few weeks, because there are the two extra exams that have to be processed, California’s furloughed on Fridays, and everyone and their dog has to sign off on the veracity of the results. The NCEES results are out there floating about, though…!</p>

30

<p>Good luck! It’s so hard to wait.</p>

31

<p>Waiting is the most horrible thing in the world.</p>

<p>The engineerboards.com forums are blazing away, trying to analyze what “early January” means. (IE, Do you think they divided the month into thirds? Does this mean that the results will be released during the first third of the month? That would be prior to January 10th, so if the results are released, they would have to be released before next Monday, which means that they must be released on FRIDAY! But California’s board is furloughed on Friday, so it must be Thursday! No, they’re not furloughed anymore, so it might be Friday! I e-mailed them again to see whether or not they had an update and they don’t! Wait, what if they divide the month into “early” and “late” and there is no middle?? That means that they might be held up until NEXT week! Are they releasing them online? Yes, they have to be releasing them online! No, they’re releasing the national results online, then the state-specific results by mail! Why can’t we find out all at once??..ad nauseum.)</p>

<p>I was doing pretty well, patience-wise, until the Texas results were released, which meant that everyone around me found out how they did, and that everyone started asking me how things went, and I had to remind them that California likes to take their sweet time.</p>

<p>But now I’m incredibly antsy. I keep checking the Engineer Boards to see if anybody else found out about their results, and then, when they inevitably haven’t, I’ll futilely log into my NCEES account to see whether or not MY scores have, perhaps, been posted (they haven’t). I’ll check my e-mail to see whether or not, maybe, NCEES has e-mailed me in the ten minutes it’s taken me to cycle through the Engineer Boards and NCEES sites, then I’ll be disappointed, then I’ll get back to distractedly doing work. We’ve got a massive submittal due today, too, that I’m supposed to be managing… I’m trying to channel all of my stress into bouncing my knee. It’s not working real well.</p>

<p>Tick tock…</p>

32

<p>in California, “early January” means “March”.</p>

33

<p>My girlfriend said all of her co-workers that took the PE this year (both CivE and EEs) heard back. Unfortunately, non of the 6+ on her floor passed. :(</p>

<p>Hope you had better luck aibarr!</p>

34

<p>^ Wow, that’s surprising! All of them failed??</p>

35

<p>Guess it says something about government employees. ;)</p>

36

<p>Eh, doesn’t say anything about government employees… I failed, too.</p>

<p>More later… I got hit with a double-whammy today, as my mom’s landed herself back in the ICU and is on a ventilator and non-responsive. Once the room quits spinning (and once I get more details on the state results), I’ll fill y’all in.</p>

<p>Major suckage!!</p>

37

<p>Oh, aibarr, I’m so sorry! What a rough day you’ve had! I will keep your mom in my prayers. Hang in there!!</p>

38

<p>Hang in there, aibarr. We are here for you</p>

39

<p>So sorry to hear about that aibarr. :frowning: Hoping your mom pulls through alright as soon as possible.</p>

40

<p>Any updates, aibarr?</p>