Taking the PE exam before experiance 1

[ntattose]

In my state engineering graduates can now take the PE exam any time after graduation, and they aren't required to have 4 years experience. After passing the exam and gaining 4 years experience they can become licensed. So the PE exam is no longer an experience based test. I have been told that it is the EIT part 2. This has been going on for a few years, and it bothers me a bit. I'm concerned that we are allowing people to become licensed before they have demonstrated that they are ready. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[WARose]

Well technically, they won't be licensed until they get the experience (even if they pass the exam immediately after college).

But practically speaking, (if we are talking the SE exam) I'd be surprised if anyone would pass that thing right out of school or just with a few years experience. Very experienced, knowledgeable engineers fail that thing consistently. I've known guys/gals with 20 years under their belt who failed it. So (at least as far as the SE goes), that's probably not a big worry.

 

[jjl317]

Related ???

I originally tested for the PE in CA, and at the time (not sure about now), they only required 3 years of experience, so I took it then, and passed.

Then, after 10 plus years of working as a PE, I applied for reciprocity in IL, and they rejected me, as I did not have the four years of experience when I originally tested (regardless of what I had done since). Though they were kind enough to allow me to sit and re-take the exam, if I chose to.

Personally, not to get political, but I would absolutely prefer if all issues related to engineering (licensure, building codes, etc.) were moved to the federal level. Things are hard enough working in engineering, let alone dealing with the different various building codes, different state PE continuing education requirements, money-grabs from various small states protecting their own, etc.

 

[ntattose]

Only a small fraction of licensed engineers take the SE. Even only a small portion of practicing structural engineers take the SE. We will soon have many individuals with an engineering license, some designing structures, who have not passed an experienced based exam. That's kind of disturbing, and I don't see an upside.

 

[canwesteng]

What do you mean an experienced based exam? It's the same exam regardless of how much experience you have before you take. There's always been an exam and an experience component to getting your PE. You seem to understand this in your first post and then immediately forget it.

 

[ntattose]

jjl317 - That's a good point, especially the money grab comment. Between my partner and I we are licensed in around 35 states. Between the licenses fees, registered agents, and the C of A's it costs us a fortune to do business. My favorite fee is the
"Privilege Tax" levied by TN. I think it's $400.00

 

[RenHen]

I don't see how it matters which order the requirements are completed in as long as they all get completed before someone is awarded a license

 

[dauwerda]

Yeah, I'm with canwesteng on this. The test was never an "experienced based exam" It's simply an exam of your knowledge.

Frankly, the exam tends to cover way more information than most engineers use in their daily job (more breadth and less depth). As a practicing Structural Engineer for a steel fabricator, I don't do any concrete or timber design, let alone geotechincal or heavy civil type stuff. All of that is on the exam, none of my experience helps me prepare for that. I would have been more prepared coming fresh out of school as I had recently had all those classes. That would have probably made the PE exam that much easier for me straight out of school than it did 4 years later when I had only been focused on one specific topic. Does that mean I should have to wait to take it just so I have to study all of the stuff I don't do daily again? No.

The experience requirement is still there. You have to have 4 years experience and get other licensed engineers to vouch for your knowledge and ability. Proving your technical knowledge through a test is separate requirement that really has little to do with practical experience.

 

[BridgeSmith]

I know several engineers who took their PE exam within a year after graduating, and they all passed.

It's been awhile since I took the PE, but I seem to remember there wasn't much of my 4 years of design experience that was helpful to me.

 

[RenHen]

I took the Civil: Structural PE a few months ago (passed ) and there was really nothing on there that I had learned through experience. I went straight from school into facade & curtain wall engineering, so other than basic sum of forces type stuff, the subjects of the test had little overlap with my area of practice. My state requires experience prior to taking the PE, but does not require that experience to be gained as an EIT, so I put off taking the FE until it was the last thing holding me up from licensure & I feel like studying for that was more relevant to my PE preparation than any of my work experience.

 

[JStephen]

I had to answer questions about thermodynamics and pump sizing to show I was qualified to design the tanks I'd been designing for 8 years when I took the test. So there was zero experience component there.
I do recall that one of the NCEES practice questions was actually a tank question, but it did not involve any tank-knowledge, and was presumably made up by someone who had never dealt with tanks.

 

[Eng16080]

I took and passed the PE (not SE), and to be honest, there isn't much correlation between my day to day structural engineering work and the test material. When I took it (before CBT), the most important skills were having a wide range of basic knowledge, and most importantly, being able to quickly lookup information within the average 6 minutes per problem timeframe. I suspect it's much the same game now with CBT, except now the ability to quickly navigate a PDF on a single computer monitor is perhaps the most important skill.

Did studying for the exam make me a better engineer? Maybe. I don't really know. Would it have been more beneficial to use the time spent studying for the exam instead studying material specific to my day to day work? Definitely.

I suspect the test is still somewhat effective in achieving its goal, though, because if nothing else it requires some level of dedication to jump through the rather arbitrary hoops.

 

[JD P.E.]

For me, the PE exam was largely theoretical and frustratingly so. With that said, who cares if you have experience or not before you take it. Most questions (while they are not easy per se) do not necessarily reflect a real life engineering situation.


I took the exam 4 months after graduating college. I still definitely needed the prep course as some of my theoretical skills were lackluster (probably due to the testing environment college has turned into now). However, it was really those 4 years after graduating that turned me into a real (baby) engineer worth a license. You learn that not everything is a picture perfect situation and sometimes it's not straightforward to come to exact solutions (hence engineering judgement/experience based practices).

Part of the whole idea of references is to gate keep dummies from getting licensed. However, that probably doesn't even work. So then it becomes engineers self-regulating and reporting dummy engineers (by dummy I just mean those who play fast and loose with everything, not IQ).

It's not perfect but to be honest I think it's better than how medical doctors can leave college, get licensed, and open up shop. At least with engineering you have to have some real experience first. I do think that is good and somewhat unique to this field.

 

[phamENG]

I'm the odd one out, I guess. Working for a generalist firm, if probably touched 500 projects across a wide range of markets and materials when I sat for the PE (Civil/ Structural) at 4 years. It was quite applicable. I only had to study for 2 weeks. By the time I was finished checking my answers, there was only 1 that I was unsure about.

I understand the OP's concern. Taken at 4 years, it (in theory) acts as a test of knowledge retention. Learn it, use it, demonstrate it. Taking it right out of school, you just need to regurgitate everything. But then, there are those whose day jobs differ enough from the test that it is nearly irrelevant. So if anything, more scrutiny on what passes for experience might be a better method than a delayed test.

 

[darthsoilsguy2]

I don't feel like working for 4 years helped me pass the PE exam. All the questions I felt good about from my work, were the low-hanging fruit I would have scored well on anyway. I think those 4 years are necessary to have the increased responsibility and to understand the industry.

 

[dylansdad]

In order to get my Master of Civil Engineering I had to make "satisfactory" (whatever that means) on the PE test. After 4 years of experience, I was able to get my license. Getting reciprocity was a little difficult back in the day (early 90's) because I was a early taker (it was required), but not an issue now.

 

[JLNJ]

Back in the dark ages when I took the PE, there were 4 problems in the morning and 4 in the afternoon. Having experience in the real world of consulting helped my ability to know how to approach and solve a "story" problem, step by step. Rather than question -> answer it was more like question -> step -> step -> step -> step -> answer. This is more like real life when one is presented with a problem.

The SEII was like this to the Nth degree. The question might be something simple like "what was the Response (R) value used for this building" but it took you an hour of logic and calculation steps to get the right answer. (In my case I remember the answer after 45 minutes was 6.)

 

[TylerM94]

De-coupling is the way to go. Let engineers study for the exam when it fits into their life best. Don’t arbitrarily make someone wait to take a test. Yes you need to have the experience to get the PE but don’t make people wait to take an exam…