switching to chemical engineering vs going to ChE master's program w/ bs in chem?

nshah9617
Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:39:46 +0000

The FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) is a licensing exam required to become a Engineer in Training (E.I.T). It is administied by your state’s Board of Engineers and is the precursor to the PE (Professional Engineer) exam. You’ll typically take the exam the semester before you graduate.

After working as a EIT for 4 or so years (depends on whether you go to graduate school) you can apply to take the much harder PE exam and become a Professional Engineer.

While the E.I.T and eventually PE look good on your resume they only are pertinent for engineers who do work with a government or other agency. PE’s can “stamp their name” on blue prints/other work and thus can be responsible in overseeing schematics or other technical aspects of a project. Naturally most civil engineers/structural engineers will have a PE license but it isn’t needed in other industries.

ChemEs typically don’t need a EIT or PE but honestly the FE exam is pretty damn easy that it doesn’t hurt to take it anyway.