PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed 2

[masieh2004]

Hello Dear Engineers,

I live in Los Angeles and have about 4 years of experience. So, recently my senior Engineers confirmed that they can serve as a reference for my PE application. I am filling out the forms for them but I need feedback, comments and suggestions to improve the descriptions of the job I performed under them. I know you can say one thing in a lot of different ways and in this application I want to use the most suitable words to make sure that my application does not get rejected. I am copy pasting the job description here. Please give me some tips on how to improve it.

Description of Engineering Tasks & Duties:
(1)Measured Lumens, Color temperature and found the Efficacy of LED Light Fixtures in order to check compatibility with California title 24 and UL lighting requirements.(2)Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures. (3) Measured temperature at different positions of fixture housings to verify if they comply with UL requirements.(4)Modified specification sheets and installation instructions for fixtures

Level of Responsibility:
(1) Inspected and verified the electrical of track fixtures, pendants, rope lights and several other light fixtures before shipping to customers.
(2) Managed UL listing and California title 24 lighting requirements of new developed LED light products.

Description of Engineering Decisions Made:
(1) Verified the electrical and lighting properties of new samples of LED retrofit kits by measuring the current, voltage and wattage using multi meter.
(2) Separated the different color LED retrofit kits based on their color(warm, warm white, white and cool white) by measuring their color temperature.
(3) Assisted the customer service department with basic dimensions, wattage and spec sheets of different light fixtures.

 

[EngineeringEric]

When i did my PE. Not Mechanical. I organized it big job by big job. described the project in a sentence. then what my duties were. what i did.

I don't know if what you have listed above is actually considered qualifying experience. I may be wrong but you may want to pick or word things differently.

 

[masieh2004]

EngineeringEric:

Thanks for your comment. This was my first job right after college and I worked as an "Engineering Intern". I was not assigned any specific project but I was assigned to help a Senior Engineer in measurements and basic analysis in terms of R&D.

 

[metengr]

Just a quick review implies more like a QA/QC job description of duties versus an engineering job. I think you will have trouble with the Board review.

 

[Rich86]

I agree with comments made by 'EngineeringEric' regarding format and 'metengr' regarding content. An additional issue is how the experience described can be considered mechanical, which the board will require for a mechanical license.

 

[masieh2004]

I appreciate and thank you for your useful suggestions. As I said, this was my first job after graduation and because of lack of engineering experience I was assigned to perform basic tasks like measurements and quality control. With California board requiring only two years of experience for PE, don't you guys think that they should consider the fact that no fresh engineer can design, manufacture and engineer products simply because of their lack of practical knowledge that they get at work?

 

[jpankask]

I am not licensed in California, but I agree that the descriptions do not sound like what the professional engineering exam/license is designed to test for. Yes, it is possible for a new engineer to design, manufacture and engineer products..under the authority of a licensed PE, which is why they are looking for the PE references. It is also possible, at least in some states, to get licensed without PE oversight of your projects, if you work in an industry where PE's are rare, such as manufacturing, etc. I did take the mechanical PE exam, and there were no questions on lighting/UL rating, etc. I would be surprised if the board admitted you with the experience as written. Only part of (4), modified spec sheets would be considered engineering. If you can capture more engineering-related activities, designing fixtures, performing calculations, creating drawings, etc. vs. measuring and talking to people, you will have much better luck.

 

[masieh2004]

jpankask:

Your response was the most helpful one out of all the above. I have another question here. At my current job, I am performing the engineering tasks that you described (designing fixtures, performing calculations, creating drawings, etc) and I can use that for my qualifying experience but the problem is that all the four references will be signing on the same activities and they are from the same company( my current company). Is that acceptable?

I can remove this experience from my record because what I have stated is exactly what I did.

 

[jpankask]

Again, I can't speak for California, but all of my PE references were from the same company. When I got my license, I was working at a manufacturing facility, and there were no PE's in my company. All of my PE references were from my previous coop employer. My boss at the time was a non-PE reference for most of my work experience. I had to submit an extra form explaining why I didn't have PE oversight for some of my work.

While you can't lie on your experience record, try to look for ways that you can accentuate "engineering" (i.e. design related) activities of your job experience rather than activities that are more quality related. The board is going to be looking for engineering experience to allow you to sit for the exam. As California only requires 2 years experience, you might have enough to be allowed into the exam.

 

[someguy79]

I got my PE in the state of Washington about 5 years ago. I combined experience from 4 different jobs (4 different PE's to vouch for me). A trained monkey could've done some of my old responsibilities, but I made it look and sound right (as jpankask suggests) and had no problems.

Good luck.

 

[masieh2004]

jpankask and someguy79,
As you might have noticed, I am not a native English speaker and writer. Could you please give an example on how I can make it sound like an Engineering experience. Like for this one,

Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures.

 

[appot]

Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures.

That kind of experience would likely not count. I fully agree that communication is an important skill for an engineer, but it is not an engineering skill for the PE exam. You need to use certain buzzwords: designed, calculated, analyzed, etc. You should also mention the name of some of the codes that are required for your particular exam.

I am making a code up here, but lets say ASME 22-12 is required for the exam. You could change your experience to be something like "Designed the system for <blank> and procured the required accessories to be compliant with ASME 22-12." Of course only say things if they are true.

When I filled out my experience, I broke it down by project. Most of my projects lasted 6 months to two years. I gave way more information than I needed...I think.

 

[SectionIX]

Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures:


I am the Corporate Engineering liaison to technology suppliers and other high end-product facilitators. In this role, I provided engineering direction to vendors and subcontractors for state of the art fabrication and inspection of electrotechnology devices to insure compliance with International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards.

 

[appot]

SectionIX is good. Ignore my advice, use his (or her's).