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P.E. licensure in New Jersey

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jonkirk31

Structural
Sep 1, 2015
21
Have any of you been granted P.E. licensure in New Jersey by way of taking the 16-hour Structural (S.E.) exam?

I took and passed the 16-hour S.E. exam in Pennsylvania as my first and only exam to receive P.E. licensure in PA, and then became licensed as a P.E. in MD, VA, WV, NY, DE, and DC via comity with no problems with any of the state boards, even though none of these states have any special recognition for S.E. licensure - all only give a regular P.E. but none had any issues with the 16-hour exam.

I finally got around to applying for my P.E. in New Jersey this year and received a letter in response that basically recognizes what exam I took and then states that "there was no indication that you passed the Principles and Practices portion of the NCEES examination, which was required by the NJ Board at the time of your initial licensure. Please be advised that the Board does not recognize the Structural I and Structural II examinations as substitutes for the Principles and Practices (Part P) portion of the NCEES examination. At this time, and until you can demonstrate that you have taken and passed the Principals & Practice examination, your application cannot be considered for approval."

Prior to responding to the NJ Board, I was hoping to see if there is anyone out there who has come across this with New Jersey before and if anyone has advice on how to proceed?

Anyone familiar with the 16-hour S.E. exam would logically conclude that this exam successfully demonstrates competency to practice engineering, but due to its special designation (not technically called a P.E. exam), it looks like NJ Board is either too lazy to formally review and approve it, or else is just not familiar with the exam to understand what it is. I tend to want to give them the benefit of the doubt and think the latter case may be true since the letter I received came from their Executive Director and he incorrectly referred to the exams as the Structural I and Structural II, which are obsolete not what I had indicated that I took.

Obviously my goal here is to receive P.E. licensure in New Jersey without having to go and take a regular P.E. exam, so anyone with some advice or feedback on how that may or may not be possible would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Jon
 
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The NJ Legislature makes the laws. There may be some benefit to send these letters to the local senators and representatives. And possibly President Governor Christie. It may have limited reach since you are not their constituents, but it might be worth a try.
 
TehMightyEngineer,

Just curious if you ever got a response to your letter?

I'm filling out a new application to NJ - this time to take a whole new P.E. exam and not apply through comity. Ugh.
 
Nope, never heard back. Not sure if I should try to send it to any senators or representatives or not. I'm just going to chock up NJ as a lost cause and hope I never have to do any engineering in that state.

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH, MA)
American Concrete Industries
 
Just curious if you ever got a response to your letter?

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Oh, that was a good one! Tears in my eyes, dying here.....
 
So not only do you expect embedded bureaucrats to step up and use commonsense, but now you expect them to be thankful for you making their job more difficult?

Here's a fun game. Fill in the blank - "Government is better than the free market at _____ ." There are actually a couple of positive answers. Commonsense is not one of them.
 
Yeah I suppose they are a lost cause, at least until everyone on their current Board dies and gets replaced by a new generation. I'm making another plea within my application to tell them how nonsensical this whole thing is and counterproductive it is to the logic of examination in your area of expertise. Not that it will do any good. But I can't help but to try to make the point to as many sets of eyes as possible within their Board and hopefully it might gain some steam with some members.
 
MightyEngineer,

We're ALL naive...until we get slapped in the face by something like this.

If things stay the way they are at some point they'll have to change. Remember, now the only way to take the engineering licensing exam in the structural discipline in the US is by way of the 16 hour SE exam so at some point there will have to be a provision for NJ njineers to get licensed without learning a new discipline. It may take ten years, though.

Hmm...or am I being naive?
 
I'd say a 10 year prediction is probably naive...

I think it was 2011 when the Structural I and II exams were dropped and the S.E. exam was introduced, and that change was first announced about 2 years prior to that to allow states to start to make provisions for the change. The concept isn't new anymore, and anyone on a state board of engineers should be well versed in the ongoings of the engineering community with talk of the S.E. exam and specialized S.E. licensure by now.

So it's been 5 years already, no change, and you think something will drastically change in the next 5 years? If I had any confidence in that, I would not be signing up to take another exam for this fall.
 
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