PPI SE Exam Review Course

I am thinking about enrolling in the PPI SE Exam review course. I know one of the instructors (TehMightyEngineer I think) is an active contributor to this board, so I thought I would pose some questions on here. 

-Is the homework assigned original content, or does it come from PPI's review books?

-How is the homework turned in and is it graded?

-How much time will the course plus homework take up each week? Will there be any time left over to study outside material, or will this course take up most of the study time between now and the Spring exam?

Please add any other comments if you recommend this course. 

Howdy!

- PPI's review books, being the PPI is a publisher company first they like to promote their texts. My personal opinion is this is good as I find the texts to be very beneficial to passing the SE course and are highly recommended by other examinees. Thus, taking the review course gets you many texts you might want anyone at a significant discount.

- Homework is turned in if you want the passing guarantee. This is similar to most other review courses that offer a passing guarantee. Homework is graded as "accepted" or "not accepted". About the only reason to get a "not accepted" is if I feel you didn't even try. Overall the homework is used more as a guided self-study than something like traditional homework. We want to see that you made a minimum level of effort to learn from the practice problem and find any lessons you can use for further study.

- If you take both parts then I'd expect you will need 300 hours of free time (this includes the lecture hours, time for a minimum level of homework, and some additional self-study time). If you feel you need more than the minimum then I'd plan on starting a little ahead of the course or optimizing how much time you spend on homework. Some people turn in picture-perfect, incredibly detailed homework. While this is fantastic to review for me, it's not needed. Whatever is needed for the course taker to meet their own study needs for the exam is all that I would require. The vertical course ends a few weeks prior to exam day. The vertical+lateral course ends 1 week prior to exam day. If you're taking vertical + lateral you should be all set starting studying when the course starts, assuming you can realistically get the 300 hours of time into your schedule. If you need some additional self-study time then I'd do as much of it as practical prior to starting the vertical+lateral course. I have built in one or two reduced homework weeks so that you can get some self-study in near the end of the course if needed.

The biggest complaints I see is about the homework in the course. PPI's practice problem text are fairly complicated problems that are often well beyond what an SE exam problem might cover. This is entirely true but the help I found in the problems was that the depth of the problem really helped me find areas of design that I was unfamiliar with. If someone doesn't feel they're learning anything by going through one of the more in-depth problems then I'd still consider the homework acceptable if you fudged the rest of the problem.

One of the biggest compliments we're often getting is the course is good at getting people what they need to know for codes they are unfamiliar with. The course is very rapid fire and the lectures focus on getting everyone on the same playing field. Someone who knows a lot about steel and concrete but nothing about wood or masonry or bridges will typically enjoy the course. We also often get thanked for the rigid structure the course provides. It keeps people working at a rapid pace so that 2 months out from the exam you're chugging along at a good speed in your studies. Following along with the course will make sure you're not over-studying one subject at the expense of another.

Lastly, I'm extremely passionate about people passing the SE exam. I'm still in contact with many of the people who took the course and if they failed the exam and elected not to retake the course I often will still provide any help I can over email or what not. I wont say PPI is the perfect course but I'd say it's the most bang-for-your-buck of a SE exam review course when you consider the volume of material we need to cover.

I also taught the course this past session. One thing that I will add in regards to the homework:

Some of the problems are assigned from a PPI book that, in my opinion, has examples that are too detailed for the SE exam. Some of the problems would take 2 hours to work through. For those particular problems I told my students to just read over the problems and solutions and write down that they reviewed the problem. Working full time and studying for the SE exam is very tough and using your time wisely in your studies is paramount. That's why I told my students to not waste too much time doing these problems. Some students went ahead and did them anyway if they thought it would help, but others didn't.  Either way, I always gave the homework a "pass" grade if the problems were attempted. 

Also, the PPI class is weighted toward the vertical exam. About 70% of the lectures are for vertical.

You do get about $500 worth of books when you sign up for the PPI course as well. That's something you may not get in other courses.

I also recommend doing the vertical and lateral components separately. 

Thanks for the responses. I'm trying to make the best decision on a review course and I know PPI's early bird special will soon be over. I assume the homework comes from the following books:

Six-Minute Solutions for Structural Engineering (SE) Exam Breadth Problems

Structural Engineering Solved Problems

Bridge Problems for the Structural Engineering (SE) Exam

Is this correct? I've already worked through the 6-min solution book and attempted some of the problems from SE Solved Problems (very difficult!). I'm wondering if this course is the right one for me since I have already worked a lot of the problems that will be assigned as homework. 

If you miss out on the early-bird I might be able to get you a discount code, I believe the early bird special gets you more of a discount though.

Yes, it would come from those texts with a small handful additionally from the Structural Engineering Reference Manual.

If you're signing up for the course for the homework and already have the texts then I would cautiously suggest you may be right. That said, I'd choose a review course based on the review course instructors, the schedule and cost, and whether you feel the course fits your study needs and personal tastes in how you study and learn. Homework should be less of a factor in my mind, with the exception of obviously you get more for your money as the texts are often highly discounted.

Last I checked PPI offered a reduced cost for the course if you already owned the texts, so that might help change your mind.

I got the results that I didn't pass the SE exam last Friday I am planning to retake the exam again in April and thinking about the PPI course review. I read that you are teaching the course and wonder if you know the advantages of PPI over other review classes out there.

Also, I missed the early-bird promo code as I was waiting for my results. Is there any way that I can use it, or any other promo codes that I can use to lower my registration costs?

SE Exam in horizon said:

I got the results that I didn't pass the SE exam last Friday I am planning to retake the exam again in April and thinking about the PPI course review. I read that you are teaching the course and wonder if you know the advantages of PPI over other review classes out there.

Also, I missed the early-bird promo code as I was waiting for my results. Is there any way that I can use it, or any other promo codes that I can use to lower my registration costs?

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That's a harsh pill to swallow but I've been there too. Did you miss both sections or just one? How'd your scores look? Depending on where your weakness is will really determine what's the best way to proceed.

Regarding the PPI course, I'd point you to much of the above and see what you feel fits your needs. I unfortunately have only had personal experience with the PPI course so I can't give a good direct comparison to other courses. I have however spent a lot of time reading other people's reviews of various structural course providers; so if we can determine what you're looking for in a course then I can let you know what PPI can offer and my thoughts on how that stacks up against what people have said about other course providers.

PPI likes the early bird people as it helps them plan better for the upcoming course. Last year they gave the instructors promo codes to try to advertise the course and I'll see if they're doing that this year and get back here if they are. I'm assuming this sort of advertising is okay on ETboards as PPI pays for advertising on the site but if a moderator dislikes this then let me know.

Thanks for your response! I got 24/40, 2 Acceptable, 2 Improv. Required in Lateral and 26/40, 2 Acceptable, 2 Improv. required in Vertical. This was my first time doing SE (overwhelmed comparing to PE NCEES 8-hours). I think my main weakness was the bridge questions (Building guy here!). I studies Conner's book, but I guess I need to study harder in that area! Living in California, my other challenges were designing for Wind (lateral) and snow loads (Vertical). 

I didn't take any review coarse and just studied the PPI books. Do you know if the instructors provide more examples during the classes or they only go over what is provided in those books.

SE Exam in horizon said:

I got 24/40, 2 Acceptable, 2 Improv. Required in Lateral and 26/40, 2 Acceptable, 2 Improv. required in Vertical. This was my first time doing SE (overwhelmed comparing to PE NCEES 8-hours). I think my main weakness was the bridge questions (Building guy here!). I studies Conner's book, but I guess I need to study harder in that area! Living in California, my other challenges were designing for Wind (lateral) and snow loads (Vertical). 

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Well, bridge areas for building engineers is definitely one area I know we cover well. Our other instructor Nathan has always done a fantastic job giving people a crash course in bridge engineering. That could benefit you a lot. Being from the upper-north wind and snow are my specialties so I bet I can get you up to speed on those as well. And, of course, everyone always needs some help with the good ol' ASCE 7 seismic provisions which we try to cover well enough.

SE Exam in horizon said:

I didn't take any review coarse and just studied the PPI books. Do you know if the instructors provide more examples during the classes or they only go over what is provided in those books.

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Well, you can get a discount on the course if you already have some or all of the texts used; PPI is primarily a publishing company and thus leans on their PPI texts pretty heavily during the course. This does have the annoying downside that we tend to cover a LOT from the PPI texts during the lectures. Bonus is that your "course notes" are well reviewed from outside the course and generally highly valued by previous exam takers who used PPI texts; but has the downside that perhaps 2/3 of the course lecture sample problems are not exclusive to the course. This is an issue I'm working toward addressing but it's hard to convince a publishing company to pay me to revise perfectly good problems in favor of new problems just for the sake of being slightly different. Oh well, we'll get there.

In the interim, to address this issue I'm going to try to substitute my own homegrown problems if and where I can; lecture time permitting. However, you may find that many problems are ones you've seen or gone over once already. This is likely not a deal breaker but I always want to try to strike a balanced approach talking here on EB.com about the course I teach, while still trying to promote it as I do feel we try hard to give a quality lecture.

I hate see myself doing the exams for the 3rd time, so I am pushing hard to get them done in the second round!  I'm sure you guys have statistics on how your students did in the previous exams. Would it be possible to share the passing rates for the previous two SE exams, here? Thanks!   

SE Exam in horizon said:

I hate see myself doing the exams for the 3rd time, so I am pushing hard to get them done in the second round!  I'm sure you guys have statistics on how your students did in the previous exams. Would it be possible to share the passing rates for the previous two SE exams, here? Thanks!   

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My goodness would I love to share that stat if I had it. Unfortunately PPI does not ask for any data from course takers on whether they passed or not so I only get info if course takers personally email me after to the course with the news. I've previously estimated that the course takers do at least better than the NCEES reported average but this was a rough estimate only and could be highly stilted as I imagine more people would rather email me with good news than bad.

TehMightyEngineer,

Is there a way to sign up for the vertical PPI course only?  Your post seems to indicate it's possible, but I don't see that option on PPI's website.  Perhaps I'm just missing something.  Can you point me in the right direction?

NCEngineer said:

TehMightyEngineer,

Is there a way to sign up for the vertical PPI course only?  Your post seems to indicate it's possible, but I don't see that option on PPI's website.  Perhaps I'm just missing something.  Can you point me in the right direction?

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Here you go: https://ppi2pass.com/se-live-online-course-vertical-forces.html

TehMightyEngineer said:

Here you go: https://ppi2pass.com/se-live-online-course-vertical-forces.html

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how come the code masters package doesn't include wind?

Phatso86 said:

how come the code masters package doesn't include wind?

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Not sure; the SK Gosh code master pamphlets are all quite good from what I can tell. No idea why PPI only includes the seismic and masonry ones. I actually wish it was the wind one as I provide my own seismic flow charts that are superior to the SK Gosh ones in my (somewhat humble) opinion.

TehMightyEngineer said:

Not sure; the SK Gosh code master pamphlets are all quite good from what I can tell. No idea why PPI only includes the seismic and masonry ones. I actually wish it was the wind one as I provide my own seismic flow charts that are superior to the SK Gosh ones in my (somewhat humble) opinion.

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you should start selling it. 

... and at a reasonable price.

Little hint (don't tell PPI), but PPI marks them up from SK Gosh's price. I'd just get them from SK Gosh: http://www.secure.skghoshassociates.com/product/show_cat.php?catid=6

TehMightyEngineer said:

Little hint (don't tell PPI), but PPI marks them up from SK Gosh's price. I'd just get them from SK Gosh: http://www.secure.skghoshassociates.com/product/show_cat.php?catid=6

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amazon has a different package for the SE exam

Don't feel terrible about how many attempts. Took me 2 times for Vertical Bridge and 4 times for lateral bridges. The technically 5th time I took lateral bridges I had to cancel the exam because my state wouldn't let me sit because of a new rule they passed and didn't tell anyone.

Phatso86 said:

amazon has a different package for the SE exam

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the package on amazon is 60 and on the website same package is 48 right now, just fyi