SE Exam Prep Courses

[hemiv]

I'm looking to take the SE exam in October 2022. I benefited greatly from taking a prep course for the PE exam. I'm looking to do the same this time around. I'm considering courses from School of PE, PPI, and NCSEA. The NCSEA courses seems to be lighter weight compared to the other two, which is not necessarily what I'm going for. Does anyone have opinions on any of these options?

 

[straub46]

I took the refresher course from SEAOI, it's live instruction 2 times a week for about 2 hours, or at least was before the pandemic. I think they're bringing the live sessions back this fall according to the website. The recordings are uploaded the next day for viewing if you need to miss one. You can also email the instructors any questions and I believe they do a good job of responding. The live instruction is only offered from October to April, if you're taking the fall exam I believe you only get access to the recorded sessions. I thought the courses were a great value, even at the Non-Member price, except I had a hard time with the steel sessions. Fortunately, most of my professional experience is with steel, so that didn't bother me too much. I spent the time of the steel course doing my own reading/review of AISC 341/SDM. It's also nice that there are 7 sessions on bridge design, which is great for finding where the loading provisions are in AASHTO.

You can also purchase individual sessions (bridge, concrete, etc.) individually I think, but the bundle is almost 50% savings.

They recommend being in person, but I streamed it as I'm not located in the Chicago area. Between the SEAOI course, the PPI reference books/exams (I read the SERM cover-to-cover, and did all the practice questions), and the NCEES practice exams, I passed both vertical and lateral on my first attempt.

Hope this helps!

https://seaoi.org/event/demand-only-refresher-courses

Go Bucks!

 

[dauwerda]

I would strongly recommend the AEI courses,

https://www.aei-california.com/courses?field_course_category_tid=30

I have not taken the others you mentioned, but the general consensus on engineerbaords.com seems to be that AEI is the best.

 

[TheDW]

I took AEI and highly recommend them. I've talked to a few guys that took PPI and the lateral review in particular seems to get poor reviews.

 

[STrctPono]

I would also highly recommend the Structural Engineering Reference Manual Link as well as the NCEES Structural Engineering Practice Exam Link. I found these invaluably helpful. Take the practice exam after you are 90% done with studying and ready for a live example test.

 

[DPetlicki]

I took EET, who's instructors have now launched AEI, to study for the lateral portion. I highly recommend AEI for the lateral portion.

I find that there aren't any review books for giving you adequate exam type questions on high seismic steel and concrete design. The questions are often too conceptual, asking about HOW the various systems work (special braced frame, special moment frame, special shear wall, etc.).


With AEI, they went HARD IN THE PAINT on practice problems. Expect about 25 homework problems a week. These problems come with the solutions. On top of that, there may be another 10-20 quiz problems which you send to the instructor and get graded. At the end of the class, there is a final exam. I'd say you end up working about 400 problems throughout the course, not including the examples (see below), and you are guiding through the curriculum and these problems in a very systematic way and sustainable way.

There were a lot of examples that we worked through in class. The instructors did a good job of breaking the examples into bite size chunks and giving the students time to chime in with what they thought certain sub-solutions were on the way to the final solution.

In conclusion, I took EET (AEI) for lateral. It was great. Two thumbs up. Highly recommend.

 

[SJBombero]

I used PPI for all three of my licenses (MechPE, CivilPE, SE) and passed every one the first time.

 

[ash060]

I used the NCSEA course that hemiv mentioned. It was the least expensive that I remember, but all the courses were recored. I do remember that the instructors would answer questions promptly. During the exam, the concrete notes that were provided from the course were extremely helpful. They had alot of diagrams and quick references for seismic detailing of concrete. The NCESS practice exams are an excellent tool as well, but I found that the actual exam was slightly harder than the practice exams.