How to prepare for PE-Mechanical exam? 2

[yangrui115]

Hi everyone,

I took the EIT exam in October 09. Now, I wonder what should I do next.

Question 1. I work for a manufacture company, and has no PE in our engineering group. But we constantly deal with customers who are PE. I don't think my boss is gonna hire a certified PE in the near future. Therefore, Do I have to start looking for a new job?

Question 2. I have a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering. A friend told me that Master's Degree holders only need one year experience before take the PE exam. Is that true?

Question 3. What preparation material is recommended for PE-Mechanical? I want to prepare it by myself, not attending any courses. (Unless the PE courses are really helpful, I'll think about it.)

 

[photoengineer]

Commentary 1: You should find out if you pass the FE exam first before you worry about the PE exam

Commentary 2: You have several years to wait before you can take the PE exam. Rather than worrying about how to prepare for the exam, I'd focus on improving your skills at your job and making contacts so you will have good references at hand when you take the exam.

Question 1: Legally, it depends on your state. Some states allow you to count experience in exempt industries where no PE is on staff. Others require a PE to be employed at the company. You don't post which state you are applying, so we don't know.

If your customers are PEs and will be willing to verify your experience, that may count.

Practically, I'd look for a new job where there is a PE who works for the company. That's my opinion - I believe places that have PEs work on staff are superior companies to work for than ones that do not have PEs on staff.

Question 2: Again, depends on your state board. Washington State allows the masters degree to count as one year experience. Other states have different rules.

Question 3: The number one reference you should purchase is the Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual. The second thing you should borrow from your library are the six minute solutions for the mechanical engineering exam. Borrow all of them and go through all of the questions regardless of which depth area you choose.

 

[ShaggyPE]

yangrui115,
I mostly agree with photoengineer. The areas where we differ is in regards to his commentary 1. Depending on your state, you may be able to take the PE right after the FE. I believe Nevada allows this as long as you have sufficient experience. Also regarding the lack of references at your current place of employment... Again depending on your state, this may be okay. Here is California, I work in medical product design, which is "exempt" from requiring a PE stamp. I happen to have one PE here who was one of my 4 references. The other 3 were colleagues or supervisors that could attest to my engineering capability.

Nonetheless, MERM available from PPI will be your #1 reference. Depending on the depth you select, you will probably have one or two more core references. I took the Machine Design depth, my other references were the Machinery Handbook and Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design. I also highly recommend the message boards on

http://www.engineerboards.com

Good luck.

-Dustin
Professional Engineer
Certified SolidWorks Professional
Certified COSMOSWorks Designer Specialist
Certified SolidWorks Advanced Sheet Metal Specialist

 

[racookpe1978]

Do your job first.

Get good at it, learn what you enjoy, what you dislike. Consider changing companies, but NEVER solely (in this job market) just to get PE credit or references.

As stated, the PE exam is a loooooooooong way off - and, in it, you will have several "areas" of experience and expertise. You are NOT expected to answer every question on the PE exam, nor answer even the ones you do 100% "perfect". But, what you do answer, you should be able to answer well. They should be in your experience areas (HX, PV, fluids, steam, power generation, HVAC, piping, mechanical movements, auto, hydraulics, machining, mechanicas, etc.)

There's a reason you can't take the exam until several years of real life are under your belt.

 

[photoengineer]

Racookpe1978,

The PE has changed quite a bit. Today, it looks basically like the FE exam. 40 questions in the morning and 40 in the afternoon. It's all multiple choice. So you have to answer 100% perfect, otherwise, you get no credit at all for that questions.

The questions may or may not be in the candidates experience areas. In my engineering experience, I rarely do calculations and can't say that anything I did on the job prepared me for the PE. I chose the afternoon exam based on the subjects I was best at in college and refreshed on those. They aren't remotely related to what I do at work each day.

 

[photoengineer]

To clarify, I meant that you either answer each question right or wrong. Obviously you don't have to get 100% on all the questions, but each question is either a 100% or 0%.

 

[racookpe1978]

Thank you for the update: My PE exam was late 80's: A very large selction of essay/problem questions to choose from in each session, but you had to answer 4x in the morning session, and another 4x in the afternoon session. No more than 2 could be in safety/QA/planning or "soft" management-type essay questions.

For the nuke engineer exam, as I recall, at least one had to be in radiation control; most of the remainder I chose from the various heat transfer, loss-of-coolant, heat gain after shutdown, reactor flux and fluid dynamics type problems.

Funniest thing was the selection of reference books brought in: I walked in with only 6 books and a handful of selected single-sheet formula guides in heat transfer - but I knew those few pretty well. Most of the others being tested brought in hand-carts full of books - and I got the impression that most spent a LOT of time madly flipping through their stack of books looking for a elusive complete formula or equation to perfectly solve their problem.

Rather, I went back to basics, listed my assumptions and simplifying approximations, listed the primary equations, and then plugged and chugged through to an answer in the units I wanted.

At the time, my first registration was from TX, who did not require a second exam but who DID require direct supervision of engineering projects BY a registered nuclear engineer for the full years needed; but my second license from from GA - who DID require both exams, but who did not require a nuclear PE be among the engineers signing for me. (So I got an electrical controls PE to be one of the references.) Since then, TX requires both exams.

As pointed out above, you MUST look closely at the actual state the OP is living in.)