Just curious, are you getting a PE license just for fun, vague credibility, or is there something specific you need a PE license for?
Congrats! And good luck with your P.E. application and the pound of calcs. I have no idea what they actually do with the calcs but I have a sneaking suspicion they weigh them and then toss them directly into the shredder…
I think it is doable for you, but I would start preparing now.
Find review courses and take them. The instructors should have a good understanding of what you can expect, and that will help relieve test anxiety. They will be your best help in preparing for the exams as they will narrow your focus to areas they know are relevant to the exams. There should be a variety of study guides and sample problem books you can purchase which will also help.
I recommend tabbing your books to useful sections, and start building your own notebook of handy equations, sample problems, etc, so you have your own, personalized reference guide that supports your strengths, and also helps out in areas where you know you’re weak. Nothing worse than sitting in that room frantically trying to find guidance on a problem you don’t know how to solve.
Since you’re out of the school system for a while, you need to get back into shape for it. Set aside a corner of your house as your study area. Small table and chair are really all you need. Start of for, say, an hour an night a few days a week, and read/review/do practice problems. Get into the habit of studying again. As it becomes easier, extend the time/frequency of your study sessions. If you start burning out, take a break for a few days, and start lightly into it again.
When you sit down for the test, bring along the materials you used to study. You’ll find that, mentally, you’re back at your table, your familiar study materials around you. That helps with test anxiety, and from what I’ve heard, if your study environment is similar to your test environment, you may do better.
Don’t panic – the test can’t hurt you. If you’re in there and absolutely bombing the thing, remember you can take it again. This will be a learning experience for you, as now you know what it’s like, have a better idea where you weak points are, and how you can better prepare for next time.
Good luck!
Congratulations! I took the FE exam 12 years after completing my undergraduate degree (and passed), so I’m impressed that you passed the exam after an even longer stretch than I did.
I took the PE exam 4 years later, and actually thought it was easier than the FE exam. For one thing, it should be closer to what you’ve actually been doing in your career, as opposed to basic subjects from long ago (like calculus).
Here’s the info on the infamous Massachusetts requirement for the pound of calculations, which can be found here:
Note that it’s actually a maximum of 1 pound (not a minimum). They basically want some representative work that you have done. Back when I was working in engineering consulting, I considered also getting my P.E. license in Massachusetts (by comity from Connecticut), and had started keeping a folder with a copy of any calculations I had done in the course of my job to prepare for this. (Then I switched for working for a public utility in Connecticut, so it no longer mattered.)
Good luck!
–robby, P.E.
It’s probably not great to say, but I found the civil PE to be extremely easy. So much so that I’m skeptical that it has much value at all in certifying that people are competent to design structures or foundations (civil PE). Hopefully serving under a PE and working on this stuff every day takes care of that.
In any case, if you can pass the FE and work in your field, the PE should definitely be doable.
How many states still have a representative work requirement? I think North Carolina did at one point, so I started collecting my calculations (I still do this, by the way), but when I applied to take the PE exam, there was no mention of submitting representative work upon passing the exam. You do, however, have to come up with a bunch of references, and the board apparently expects most of them to be PEs, which is a big problem for certain fields.
And no, the exam did not go well. A PE license isn’t needed for my current job, and likely won’t be needed for the next since my skill set is too unique to readily transfer over to another line of business, but I’ve always had the impression that you can’t be an accomplished engineer without a license.
A bit of each, really. I want it because it’s “next” in a career standpoint, and it’s expected (and in many places required) in my field to create plans and documents.
All of the fire protection engineers I have spoken to have said the same thing. Looking at the practice FPE PE exams, they have all had a “I already do this” quality to them. The exam isn’t my concern now, it’s the representative work side. Twelve years was not under a PE, but I was the recipient of their works and sent many of them back with scathing comments. But I never expected to be heading down this road, and never saved any of that stuff. Only one way to find out, into the breech it is.