Guidance for moving towards PE

Hi All,

I passed the FE late last year, and started a new job at a very small firm.  I've been working outside of engineering over the past few years - partly due to being the primary childcare provider in the family.  It has been 30 years since most of the PEs at my new firm took the exam, and I don't have much guidance on moving forward.  I have a Master's, and the timeline from my state is 3 years till eligible to take the PE exam.  Here are my questions:

-What kind of experience do I need to document, how detailed should my notes be, and what is adequate/not adequate for experience type?  I'm wondering about what the board may want to see documented and what kind of work I need to be asking for at my job.

-This one may seem obvious, but I'll ask anyway.  I am looking to take the enviro PE exam.  The PEs here are mostly civil, but have a lot of enviro work.  How much of my experience needs to be dedicated to my specific discipline? 

-What advice do you have for someone just starting down the road towards their PE in a small firm with potentially limited mentoring (again, I think I'm inviting some criticism here..)?  I will have enough references, but maybe not a ton of oversight. 

-Any other words of advice would be great - I'm feeling a bit lost in getting to my goal.  

Thanks!  

What State are you applying in?  It can be different from state to state. In my experience, Virginia required a lot more detailed documentation that Florida.  A previous coworker of mine applied to take his PE exam in Virginia and was required to document his design experience down to the hour; however, he had an international BS so maybe that was part of his difficulty to get approved.  I applied to take the exam in Florida and they mainly wanted to know my general work responsibilities and how many months and years I'd been doing each type of responsibility. 

I don't think you need to have a 100 page dissertation for your experience, but they generally like to see the words "design" " perform calculations" etc.. Also throw in some review of junior staff work.  It doesn't really matter how long ago people at your firm took the PE, as long as they are PE's and sign your form / experience verification stuff...

You can get other up to date info about the exam from other posters on this site along the way..

But sometimes it doesn't matter big firm or small firm not everyone does a good job mentoring, but hopefully you will get what you need!

I'm in Massachusetts.  I have an international BSc, and that was an issue in securing my EIT certification..that said, the BSc is from McGill U. in Canada.   Thanks for your reply!

I know Mass has some pretty detailed requirements. I believe they require documents/reports/etc. to be sent in along with the application (As you may already know). To the question of what areas/projects would qualify and the exact nature of the documentation, hopefully someone who has gone through the process in MA can help, if no one is available in your company to guide and the application doesn't have details in the instructions.

I am in CT and the application process is much easier. Just needs you to list your project/work experience and signature from 5 reference. No additional/supporting documentation or proof required.

oh that sounds like fun.. (not)

Also for a foreign degree you may need a little more detail also, so maybe just do a little along the way..

The foreign degree requires evaluation from NCEES (another step and more money), prior to application. BSC is a three year degree vs engineering so that might be another challenge in the evaluation. Unless the Masters is from the US.

MA sounds tough.  I sorted out the foreign degree issue with NCEES and the MA board - it was not easy.  The takeaway in MA seems to be document everything, assume they will want to see every scrap of paper.  

Mel05 said:

MA sounds tough.  I sorted out the foreign degree issue with NCEES and the MA board - it was not easy.  The takeaway in MA seems to be document everything, assume they will want to see every scrap of paper.  

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Maybe you could instead apply (board acceptance is easy) and give the exam in CT and apply for reciprocity in MA after? Though requirements for reciprocity may be same/equally draconian and CT licensing cost is high.

Mel05

Be happy you're not in California where you have an extra 5 hours of exams on top of the PE.  Anyway from what I can tell, the most important thing is to get references.  As long as your experience is relevant and the board has confidence that you won't stray from your area of expertise, I think you should be alright.  In California, they barely even give you space to describe your experience.  

I also have my degree from McGill and hold a License in Canada as well.  Seems like the US is much more Exam focused whereas in Canada the experience documentation is much more heavily scrutinized.  The big Milestone is the NCEES exam.  This forum has a lot of great advice for all of that.  Also Youtube is a good platform for PE prep.

I didn't necessarily keep notes on my experience; I just kind of put it together when I was applying. I think the biggest key is to make sure that all the work you are doing is under a licensed PE. If you aren't working under a PE then pretty much all of your experience is worthless. As far as Civil PE's being references for Environmental PE exam I don't think it would be a big deal, but you should definitely call your state board and ask them. Better to find out now than a year or two down the line.

Edit: Also something to note about Civil PE's referencing for Env. PE. If you use your experience for the Env PE and decide later that you want to take the Civil PE as well, you can't use the same experience for two different disciplines.