California Geotechnical Engineer (GE) license 4

[pelelo]

thread274-402232

Has anyone sit for this exam, provided by CA?. Can anyone provide any information about the references?. Please let me know.

 

[geomane]

Check out engineerboards.com. They can answer this.

 

[Okiryu]

pelelo, I will be taking the exam this year. I have been looking for references and bought those videos. I also have some books from my PE exam (afternoon exam was geotechnical). The CALGEO videos use the NAVFAC manual (DM 7.1) as the main reference. The DM 7.1 manual has some worked examples so you can go thru them. The CALGEO videos also have several problems prepared by licensed GEs so I guess those problems may be close to the exam's problems. However, the videos are quite old (recorded in 1991). I think those videos are the best reference available.

The CA Board website have also a list of reference books (I have most of them for work) so I am planning to take those to the exam.

Anyways, good luck in the exam !

 

[Okiryu]

pelelo, did you take the exam?

 

[ocgeo]

Let me know how it goes, I have taken it 3 times, and prepared several months, about 1 to 2 hours per weekday, before each exam. I used the CalGeo videos (it will take you hours just to organize the pdf handout from CalGeo, and for me was not helpful), and many of the references the Board. The Board material is very vague and also was not helpful. The passing rate is at about 20 percent, a couple years ago it went up in the 30's. The exam content varies, but some of the questions are very good, while many others are terrible.

I have been in the geotech field since 2002, geotechnical design and consulting, and have a master's in geotech. In my opinion the exam, besides some good questions, is generally poorly written (and I don't think they take the time to throw out 'bad' questions), and with only 100 exam takers per year, may not get the attention it needs like the civil, and structural licensing exams. Good luck, and let me know what you think.

 

[pelelo]

I plan to take it next year.

I heard it is very subjective, there are questions which your answers may vary depending on the experience of the individual.

Good luck with that.

 

[ATSE]

The exam is indeed poorly written, as compared to other standardized engineering tests. Seems like 1/4 of the questions are subjective.
Had to take it a 2nd time to pass (forced me to study more, which was good).
Useful practice problem booklet: NCEES civil:Geotechnical covers breadth and depth.

 

[Okiryu]

ATSE, per your title, your main practice is structural engineering. Just wondering to hear your opinion about how hard is to have a structural engineer taking the GE exam or vice versa (a geotechnical engineer taking the SE exam).

 

[ATSE]

No disrespect to my dirt friends, but the SE was substantially more difficult than the GE. Not quite a fair comparison, since I took the SE in 2001, when the passing rate in California was between 10% and 30%.
You can't even register for the tests without several years of experience and professional references in each respective field (at least in California).
Booklist (books that I brought with me and used most of them during the test):

ASCE 7
Bowles Fdn Engr
Caltrans Binder (pavement)
CBC
Coduto Fndn Design
CPT Guide (Gregg)
Das
DMG Landslides (SCEC)
Duncan Wright Brandon
EERI MNO12 (I&B)
Engr Soils Lab (Bowles)
Geo EQ Engr (Kramer)
Goswami Practice
Holtz Kovacs
Lindeburg Solutions
NAVFAC
NCEES Civil:Geotch
Six Min Sol
SP117A
Terzaghi Peck Mesri

Obviously, don't bring a reference with you that you are not completely familiar with, and have indexed with tabs, or it will work against you (time).

 

[Okiryu]

ATSE, perhaps you are correct. The SE exams are 2 days-8hrs exams so they cover more topics than the GE exam. I took the GE exam in May this year and passed it. That was my first time. I think the GE exam was difficult because as you mentioned, most of the questions are subjective. Anyway, my main practice is geotechnical but sometimes I support the structural folks in my office. I think that there are very few engineers with dual GE and SE licenses so I was wondering how difficult may be for a geotechnical guy to take the SE exams (just wanted to know this in the case of my office encourage me to take the SE exams).

 

[ATSE]

I would not suggest attempting the SE exam without 3 years of solid , intensive building design experience. Concrete, masonry, steel, and wood.
It's been 16+ years now for me, but the national test is now almost every state's SE test, and it has traditionally been very code-centric.
I'm sure it is possible to walk in and pass the SE test without both lots of experience and focused studying, but I would consider that a unicorn.
SE cross over to GE is much easier than GE cross over to SE. Plus, GEs and SEs just think differently (in terms of problem solving and day-to-day activities).