Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler fundamentals of engineering

well folks... I am about to head out the door to take the 8 hour fundamentals of engineering exam. 120 probs in the morning and 60 in the afternoon.

Wish me luck!

Good luck with your exam.

Good luck from me as well!

Good luck. I'm glad to read that exam still happens. I remember taking one 30 years ago and how rigourous it was.

Ugh, 8 hours? Good luck!

It's giving me a headache just thinking about it.

well Its all said and done now! The first four hours was really easy and the afternoon test was pretty tough. overall Id say I did pretty good.

thanks for the luck!

T, I suppose that I can still send best wishes that your analysis and calculations were on target. Now just imagine: those were only the fundamentals?

Either, he did okay and he's out celebrating, or he's still in there takin' the test. Hmm. . .

update. I passed the exam. I got my results a couple of months ago but forgot to mention that I passed... ( they don't give the score just a pass/fail)

I know the suspense has been killing all of you, but you can now return to your normal sleep schedule

What discipline of engineering?

civil engineering.
I have an interest in soil mechanics/geotech so I am looking to start toward a graduate dergree next semester.

Congratulations, I don't miss having to take exams.

My father-in-law was the chief concrete engineer for some huge dams built in the 60s and 70s in Canada. He was a geotechnical engineer and a geologist. My brother-in-law is a civil engineer who worked as a geotechical consultant for years and is now a concrete quality engineer. I suggest you also try to take a basic course in project management to better prepare you for your career. It will be looked upon very favourably by your future employer.

I am currently working for the Corps of Engineer's in the Geotech and Dam Safety section. I would love to have worked back in the '40's when most of the Dams were being built around my area. Since no dams are currently being designed we focus mostly on safety, upkeep, repair, ect. of existing structures.

We are required to take a construction management class in our undergrad program, but graduate level versions are available.

Congrats, now I can sleep at night.

Up until a few years ago, I would wake up in the morning very nervous because I believed that it was the day for the big electromagnetics exam. The feeling lasted for about 5 seconds and then I'd breathe a big sigh of relief as I realized I passed that exam 17 years earlier.

Do you still dream of flux fields?

No. I got enough of them at work. It would have been great if during university you got exposed to EM testing in anechoic chambers. That's where you really start to get a sense of what's going on. I must admit that I never understood Maxwell until I happened upon "Fundamentals of Electric Waves" written by Skilling in 1948.

Sounds like something I should read. It was the damn EM stuff that knocked me out of Physics in college. That and the advanced mechanics. And sequences and series in multivariable calculus. Hmm...
At least I understand relativity and quantum mechanics. Sigh.

My how time flies! It's been 4 years since I finished my undergrad. One must have 4 years of work experience after college and have successfully completed the FE exam before they can take the PE (professional engineering) exam. I'm about to submit my application (and $415 in testing fees) for the PE which I will take in April. So, wish me luck as I have a LOT of studying to do over the next 5 months.

Also, I have been working towards my masters in civil engineering (construction management) since 2007 and am finally finishing up. I turned in my final research paper and I have one more class meeting in my last college class ever. I decided to do the graduation ceremony since I didn't do it for my under grad and my parents were bummed. Ive got my cap and gown all ready to go and I've got a hotel booked in Stillwater OK. Going to hit the bars one last time as a college student (I couldn't resist)

Congratulations and good luck on your PE exam. I'm about to retire after 30+ years in construction management, and I can tell you things have changed a lot since I started. I used to spend most of my time actually involved in building things, but now it's all about the paperwork. That, and inept contractors!

My hard hat is off to you for completing your engineering education. It's probably the hardest thing you'll ever do. Enjoy the accomplishment!

Nice job! I've never been able to push myself through anything even close to that long-term. Good luck studying for the PE.

Congratulations! Here's to you acing the PE exam.

Best of luck with those tests David.

$415 isn't that bad considering an auto mechanic has to spend about that to complete all of the ASE tests.

Yeah, it could be worse.

Good luck and happy studying?

Studying is going well so far. Exam is on April 13th so I'm down to about 2 months. I've got a stack of papers about 9" high of all of the problems that I have worked so far, gathered TONS of references, tabbed the hell out of some of my books, etc. I've been working a lot of problems in both the morning breadth and afternoon geotech depth module that I will be taking.

I'm attending a PE training course in Dallas for 3 weekends spread across march. I'm really looking forward to getting some benefit from this class. I'll be making the 5 hour drive down on Wednesday night,coming back Sunday night (class is from 9-5 thur, fri, sat, and sunday- repeated 3 times).

My goal is to be so over prepared for this exam that I walk out mad at myself for wasting so much time studying.

So far I am on track but have a lot more to go.

I'm going to sit down this saturday and take an 8 hour mock exam. The organization that puts on the test sells a sample exam which I bought a month or two back but have yet to crack open as I've been waiting until I feel a little more prepared and can do an actual test run with it.

Wow, keep up the hard work!! I'm confident it will be rewarded.

Excellent! Keep going, David!

Go David, Go David, it's your Henry66's Birthday

Congrats on your Masters and good luck on the exam. I passed the CA exam in April of 11' and its pretty damn satisfying. We have 3 exams to take, the general (I chose water resources as that is my area), seismic, and surveying. I went full bore on the seismic studying but was able to pass all 3 on the first try. All I could really recommend is dont spend too much time on one question. If you don't know how to do it right off the bat, I would say skip it, and make sure you get to the ones that you know immediately how to solve. Then go back to the ones you didnt and work on those. I know for sure of a bunch of questions I wasnt too confident in, and left those for last and was able to get in done. Good luck!!

Thanks for the advice!

6 days till the big test. I'm feeling pretty confident, I think I'm gonna crush this thing. I took the sample exam several weeks back put out by the organization that makes the test in a simulated test run and scored a 92%. I've since had an 80 hour training class (split over 3, 4 day weekends) and studied countless hours.

In any event, send positive thoughts my way on Friday April 13th.

Ha ha, figures the test is on Friday the 13th.


Good luck, David!

Yeah, I hope no one comes in wearing a hokey mask and tries to chop us into bits...

Hi David, I also want to say good luck. And don't worry about all that Friday the 13th stuff. Just take a rabbit's foot with you,wear your lucky shirt, don't break any mirrors that day. Before leaving home throw a little salt over your right shoulder. Don't walk under any ladders when your outside looking for that four leaf clover. Lastly don't let a black cat cross it's path in front of you.

Do all this, and cram for the exam, you'll be fine. Again best of luck.

*hockey

Best of luck David, although it sounds like you won't be needing it.

Good luck David. As Murph said, you sound like you don't need it, we make our own luck.

One more "Good luck" from me, with the same disclaimers!

Reporting to exam site at 7:15 AM tom.

Guess what I'm gonna do this weekend? I have absolutely no idea, but it's NOT going to be studying. I think I'll sit down in front of my axioms with a nice bottle of Scotch...

Good Luck! With all the prep work you've done, I bet you'll nail it.

terzaghi, what can we expect first, your grade results, or an empty scotch bottle hitting the trash can?

Since it takes 8 weeks for exam results I would say the scotch .

I'd be surprised if I don't pass. The morning sessions was easy, I'm sure I aced it. The afternoon was pretty tough, but I think I did well. There were several obscure questions on topics that I was familiar with in general, but the specifics of the problem came from left field.

Overall I think I did really well. I was excited waking up for the test, only nervous about 30 minutes before. I was nervous for about the fist 5 minutes of testing in the morning and the first 10 minutes in the afternoon. Otherwise, I was in a pretty good rhythm solving problems. I was looking forward to turning the page and seeing what they could throw at me next. I would say I was over prepared for the general morning session, and adequately prepared for the afternoon discipline specific questions. Who knows until I get my actual results though...

what kind of scotch?

I would say that Lampy has hit on the most important question of the day.

Congrats on finishing it, David!

Went with Macallan 18.

Good Luck!!

This is why i freaking hate standardized tests...... all of them....


Hope you did well, Good luck.

Hope you aced it!

Remember that Scotch bottle is recyclable.

Well, I passed! Now to get that Scotch...

Its' nice that they highlighted the important line for you in case you were too nervous to find it.

Congrats, smart guy.

Way to go David.

Concurrage .

Your concurrigible, Cam. :P

You're corrigible, Peter .

I'm corrugated. Which means I recycle differently.

Congratulations here too, David!

Well done!

I can't believe that there is a person among us who doubted for a moment that you would receive that letter! Rock on, David!


Sing along with Alice: School's out forever!

Congrats David!

I thought you were still down in Mexico sipping on an alcoholic beverage.

Good deal,congrats David!

Congratulations, David!

Thanks everyone. I'm sure many can relate to the feeling of completing a challenging goal that you had for several years. I'm glad to have it done!


Unfortunately, I was only in Mexico for 8 days and have been back since the 21st . We had a blast though and met lots of nice people!

David, are you already in the "job," or are greener pastures coming next?

Same job I've had for about 5 years, no plans to change. However, opportunities for additional advancement will now be possible in the future!

Congratulations, David!

Nice work!

Congratulations, David...

Hopefully you only have one more standardized test to go... The one to get into grad school, Then done with standardized tests.

Congratulations!!!!
Hard work rewarded.

YeeeeHa!

(Translation: Meow.)

Congrats!

Congratulations Engineer!!!

Dakkon,
I started grad school in 2007 and finally finished in 2011. I completed my masters with evening classes while working.

The steps to get to engineering licensure are as follows:
B.S. Engineering Degree> FE Exam> Four years engineering experience> PE Exam
or
M.S. Engineering Degree> FE Exam > 3 years engineering Experience> PE Exam.

I can likely say I'm done with national standardized tests for good!

Thanks everyone for the congrats!

Congrats from a fellow (retired) engineer. It's a hard path but makes for a very rewarding career.

Congrats, a dream/desire realized is a wonderful thing.

Ditto.

People who resent money never make it. People who resent success never achieve it. Celebrate the success of others.

That is no easy task. Must feel really good. Congrats.