Anyone taking School of PE

for lateral or vertical?

I took it for lateral, I thought it was a very good course. Vertical I studied on my own using the SERM and felt very prepared.

I am taking it for the lateral coming up, just used SERM, the NCEES example problems, and FHWA examples and did fine on the vertical.

I've seen some people say it was okay or moderate and some people say it was great. About the same as most review courses I would guess. About the only courses that seems to have nothing but glowing reviews are EET and the ASCE courses.

TehMightyEngineer said:

About the only courses that seems to have nothing but glowing reviews are EET and the ASCE courses.

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I should clarify that this may be because the ASCE courses are much more focused and the EET courses are fairly new from what I can tell. Overall I don't think I've ever heard of a course being universally perfect or universally terrible; some people seem to love a particular course while others say they hated it.

What do you mean by "tthe ASCE courses are much more focused"? Does it mean that it a better review course for the SE exam? Thx!

SE Exam in horizon said:

What do you mean by "tthe ASCE courses are much more focused"? Does it mean that it a better review course for the SE exam? Thx!

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I believe (from what people have told me and what I've read) that their course is shorter with less depth but focuses more on the key aspects of the SE exam, particularly loads and seismic. For example, the ASCE course has 22 hours of course instruction ($86/hr for non-members) while PPI's course has 69 hours of course instruction ($33/hr). This of course does not include any texts as I can't find what is included in the ASCE course besides the course notes, so PPI's is an even better deal.

I'm not familiar with School of PE's hours and schedule but I assume it's somewhat similar to PPI's. The point is ASCE's course seems to provide a lot of good review from what I hear but may not be as comprehensive or in-depth as some of the other courses.