How long did your PE application take?

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CivE Bricky

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I'm pretty sure mine was about 100 hours (mostly spent on writing up experience which I had minimal records on.....) Fortunately I was covered with my current employer - didn't have to hunt down old supervisors and such.

 
Well I started the application in 2000 (with 4 years under my belt), and finally finished it in 2009!! The amplified record of experience is what took forever, one of those hurdles that mentally I thought would take forever and therefore didn't attempt it. Finally I just dove in. The writing, and all the rewrites probably took about 50 hours. Getting all the references and their paperwork together took another 10 hours. Sending it in - priceless!

 
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I spent more time on my application than studying (not counting the Testmasters course, though).

 
I filled out the application in about 2 hours. Finding my references (one of whom is in India) took 2 weeks. Completed it the day it was due. :wacko:

 
I spent about 33 hours typing up my experience and revising it per the supervising PE plus 2 hours getting my references to sign off on their recommendations. For a grand total of 90 hours for the PE Civil Exam (35 hours Application + 55 hours studying).

 
did i fill out a different application or something? i dont think i spent more than an hour on it...

 
yeah, me too...i only worked at two places after graduation though so it didn't take long. and all of my references were in the place i worked, so it was easy.

 
yeah, me too...i only worked at two places after graduation though so it didn't take long. and all of my references were in the place i worked, so it was easy.
Same here. I used my corporate resume almost verbatim. The whole process for me was certainly less than 8 hours.

 
MAYBE 6 hrs total. Its not that hard when you pull from the wealth of experience/knowledge/talent yours truly has at his fingertips. B)

 
Looking at the other posts, I think I may have over done it. My boss had me convinced that I had to have just about every hour accounted for and I have worked on a lot of different projects. Whatever though, it's done.

 
8 years and 2 days. The breakdown on that is 8 years of procrastination, and 2 days to actually fill the thing out.

 
8 years and 2 days. The breakdown on that is 8 years of procrastination, and 2 days to actually fill the thing out.
Yeah, that's exactly right. The hardest part about filling out the application for me was starting it. It took me about 2 weekends to get everything together but literally 8 years to start it. I felt a bit intimidated to fill out the application, like my engineering experience was somehow lacking. The whole process of getting your PE feels a lot like hazing culminating with an excruciating wait for the actual exam results. It's really more of a test of endurance than a reflection of your ability/competence as an engineer in my opinion. You really just need to be willing to put in the time to study to pass the exam and hope that the topics that you know well are well represented on the exam. I use maybe 10% of what I studied for the test in my actual job. I think some of the qualities that make the best engineers are hard to test on paper such as creativity, integrity, humility, thirst for knowledge, and the ability to apply theory to real world applications.

 
I started it during work. So i felt motivated to get it done asap not to waste time... Although i really wouldn't consider it a waste of time ;)

So... maybe 5 hrs total.

 
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I would say maybe 5-6 hours total working on the application itself. Sure it took me longer to get my references to fill everything out, but actual time out of my pocket couldn't have been more than 7 hours.

 
Worked on the application here and there for about 6 months - probably put in an estimated 25 - 30 hours.

 
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