I took one at a local University and was not impressed. They kind of generalized on what would be on the test - but did few examples... - which I needed.
I took the IIT (not ITT) EIT-PE Review Courses. Here's my comments:
1) Each class is 3 hours and that's too long. I don't have an infinite amount of time to review for the PE, and since the class is offered August and September, watching the classes cut into my time spent solving problems.
2) I'm from Seattle (Montana originally) and I had a hard time understanding the professors.
3) The instructors were old geezers who didn't know much about the PE. So it wasn't PE specific, it was subject specific. But I didn't feel that a general review of subjects was what I needed. I wanted specific review of material (and problems) relevant to the PE.
I know IIT has courses as does SEAOI. I am referring to the SEAOI sponsored courses. They have (supposedly) teachers that are practicing engineers but also know the SE exam. It's pretty expensive, so I just want to know if people think it's a good investment.
Nothing beats rolling up your sleeves, tabbing the heck out of your textbooks, and learning the material yourself. Unless the course is weeks long (like many BAR exam prep courses) I'm willing to bet it's gonna be worthless. The SE exam is so broad yet detailed, and a daylong course is only gonna give you a wide swath of what will be on the exam....you can do that yourself by looking on the NCEES website where it outlines what subjects are on the test.
Your money will be better spent on good reference materials. Definitely get the NCEES practice test, and maybe the 6 minute problems book. Get a good analysis book, I recommend the one by Leet, and learn all your basics. Concrete book by MacGregor. Wood book by Breyer. Steel book by Salmon, and any masonry design guide should do
I found the Structural engineering reference manual to be worthless.
The 246 practice problems book was also worthless.
There's a lot of material out there that will waste your money, so beware. Every book I bought authored by Williams or Buckner was garbage. PPI2PASS pushes a lot of material that looks good on their website, but when in reality are poor-at-best references for the actual exam.
Once you get through the SE1, the SE2 will be cake. Good luck!
Why was the 246 practice problems worthless? I bought that book. The practice test can be purchased through NCEES? The SE review course runs over 4 or so months meeting once a week for 2 hours reviewing a different topic each week.. You say that just reviewing the basics and knowing all those concepts will serve me better than the review books.
Thanks
246 questions is worthless because the problems are not representative to current day exam questions. Hats off to you if you can do all those problems well, but I don't think they'll help you on the SE1 or SE2. They're not even worked in the correct code which is annoying too.
Yes, good textbooks will serve you better than any review book that skims the surface of a few things in any one subject. I forgot to add, you need a good Mechanics of Materials text too, by Beer. The ONLY good reference book I've heard of is the big Civil Engineering Handbook. My friend has one, I looked through it, and it actually had enough useful things in it to be declared worthy.
I dunno, that SE review course you describe may be worth it to you to keep on pace.
i thought those kaplan books were good. though there were many mistakes in them (which actually is good because it'll keep you on your toes), i just bought all three and studied for half a year for the S1 and like 2 months for the S2. each individual problem is like an S1 problem, and the total problem is like an S2 problem.
