April 2011 exam stories

[David Wooderson]

Man, it's the same bullshit they tried to pull in my day. If it ain't that piece of paper, there's some other choice they're gonna try and make for you. You gotta do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do man. Let me tell you this, the older you do get the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N.

 

[Coastal Engineer]

We had Edna and Gert at my exam too back in the day.
What did you folks do for lunch? It's a major topic around here.

South Carolina Society of Professional Engineers provided pizza and sodas. Very nice actually.

 

[Coastal Engineer]

I'd rather hire someone with no degree that had enough experience and competency to pass the exam on the first attempt than someone that holds a degree but took 8 shots at the exam before they finally got lucky and passed.
Nobody interviews a potential engineering firm by asking them how many of their PE's are degreed, or even how many times those PE's took the exam. The question everybody asks is, how much EXPERIENCE does your firm (and by inference, your PE's) have in designing X-Y-Z type projects.

When was the last time you heard of ANY professional firm (doctors, engineers, lawyers, whatever) being hired solely because of the status of its employee's undergraduate degrees? If you can find one example, I'd be impressed.

when i hire consultants i require them to state their education and also ask them int he interview. I'm the only one in my firm who does that, though.

I thought it was common practice to ask for the experience and education levels for any engineer that you contract out. I always have. I'll also admit that I have known two professional engineers who did not have college education but through lots of experience and studying passed the test anyways. The state where those two were registered (they are retired) has since required a minimum of 4 years for a BS and 6 years for a two year engineering tech degree.

I guess I would encourage anyone who hires the services of an engineering firm to feel free to check out the education and experience of those engineers that are providing them services. I have never felt bad asking and some firms volunteer the information upfront without asking.

 

[Exception Collection]

I'd rather hire someone with no degree that had enough experience and competency to pass the exam on the first attempt than someone that holds a degree but took 8 shots at the exam before they finally got lucky and passed.
Nobody interviews a potential engineering firm by asking them how many of their PE's are degreed, or even how many times those PE's took the exam. The question everybody asks is, how much EXPERIENCE does your firm (and by inference, your PE's) have in designing X-Y-Z type projects.

When was the last time you heard of ANY professional firm (doctors, engineers, lawyers, whatever) being hired solely because of the status of its employee's undergraduate degrees? If you can find one example, I'd be impressed.

when i hire consultants i require them to state their education and also ask them int he interview. I'm the only one in my firm who does that, though.

I thought it was common practice to ask for the experience and education levels for any engineer that you contract out. I always have. I'll also admit that I have known two professional engineers who did not have college education but through lots of experience and studying passed the test anyways. The state where those two were registered (they are retired) has since required a minimum of 4 years for a BS and 6 years for a two year engineering tech degree.

I guess I would encourage anyone who hires the services of an engineering firm to feel free to check out the education and experience of those engineers that are providing them services. I have never felt bad asking and some firms volunteer the information upfront without asking.

You should never feel bad for asking. I know when our firm seeks contracts we have no issues supplying resumes of relevant employees, with all relevant information (education, experience, specialties, etc) on them. And if someone asks where I went to school, I will explain the situation to them - usually in greater detail than they care about.

 

[pbrme]

Anyone else take the test in WA? In the afternoon sesh at the convention center, there were two aholes on either side of the room have a coughing contest. When ever I got tired, or couldn't quickly understand the solution I would turn to one of them, glare and shoot imaginary lasers from my eyes with silent "Pew-Pew" sounds. Seriously? Drink some water... It was rough. DON'T forget earplugs newbs, and take 5 sec. breaks like this.

 

[PsychoNumber1]

Anyone else take the test in WA? In the afternoon sesh at the convention center, there were two aholes on either side of the room have a coughing contest. When ever I got tired, or couldn't quickly understand the solution I would turn to one of them, glare and shoot imaginary lasers from my eyes with silent "Pew-Pew" sounds. Seriously? Drink some water... It was rough. DON'T forget earplugs newbs, and take 5 sec. breaks like this.

in sacramento, we had protors with coughs who roamed the rows of people hacking away.

 

[dmparri3]

I took the exam in Florida (Kissimmee) and the setup was 2 people to a table. The moning session wasn't bad, but in the afternoon the guy next to me kept erasing really hard, shaking the table violently every time. Luckily he finished with about 2 hours left, but after handing in his exam materials he packed up his belongings very loudly (slamming his backpack on the table, shufflling various other things loudly, etc.). In other words he made a lot of noise, disturbing not just me, but everyone around me. Hopefully his short time in the afternoon meant that he gave up and will be taking the exam again in October.

 

[Sam77]

In Idaho, since the NCEES exam authorization says that the report time is 7:15am, a few people were out of the building 10 minutes earlier than that. It appeared that 7:15am is the time doors are open which leads us to wait out in the cold weather for a while (parking lot is about a 5-minute walk to the building ). I suggested for them in the examinee survey to change the report time to (7:15am-7:45am) or something like that.

 

[palvarez83]

I'm a mechanical PE and sat for the Electrical PE in Pomona, CA this time (still awaiting results). During there was a guy who ate nothing but bananas. I mean this guy, no joke was walking around with two bundles of bananas and was scarfing them down in seconds! My friends and I were laughing hysterically. Since eating was not allowed while sitting , one had to go to the pathway to eat... In the afternoon, I went to the bathroom 2 times and ran into the guy eating yet more bananas! Wow! That guy must hold a record!

 

[Exception Collection]

I'm a mechanical PE and sat for the Electrical PE in Pomona, CA this time (still awaiting results). During there was a guy who ate nothing but bananas. I mean this guy, no joke was walking around with two bundles of bananas and was scarfing them down in seconds! My friends and I were laughing hysterically. Since eating was not allowed while sitting , one had to go to the pathway to eat... In the afternoon, I went to the bathroom 2 times and ran into the guy eating yet more bananas! Wow! That guy must hold a record!

I used to eat bananas that much sometimes. Now I can't; I'm on a med that prevents/slows my body from removing potassium, so I have to avoid Potassium-heavy foods or become hyperkalemic. 1 or 2 bananas per week is all I eat, when I eat them at all, I shouldn't eat the skins of potatoes if I have them at all, and I can't chow down on peanuts.

During my exams (not this year) I took water and a bag of trail mix. For the lunch, I placed an order ahead of time for a restaurant I liked, and ate quickly. One of the benefits of taking exams in cities you know well: You can find stuff quickly. Also, my hometown is a large enough city that several restaurants are within driving distance but small enough that traffic doesn't snarl.

 

[James3AE]

I took the exam in Florida (Kissimmee) and the setup was 2 people to a table. The moning session wasn't bad, but in the afternoon the guy next to me kept erasing really hard, shaking the table violently every time. Luckily he finished with about 2 hours left, but after handing in his exam materials he packed up his belongings very loudly (slamming his backpack on the table, shufflling various other things loudly, etc.). In other words he made a lot of noise, disturbing not just me, but everyone around me. Hopefully his short time in the afternoon meant that he gave up and will be taking the exam again in October.

same two people to a table in Jersey. When i took the FE two years ago I had a guy that was erasing a ton. This time I think I was the guy that was annoying, since I bumped my foot in to the table leg a few times while getting my reference books out.

Anyone else take it in central Jersey? The tables were horrible, only about 18 inches or so deep. It was very tough to keep everything organized.

 

[GS_Beacon]

Anything fun and exciting happen at you test site? from a post I read it sounds like the answer is yes. please share!!

Not really... I took my PE exam in Brooklyn, NY inside a big gym at Pratt Institute. Just a few things of note:

1. Many examinees brought cell phones and had to leave them up at the proctor's table in each section. The NCEES volunteers were thoughtful enough to have resealable plastic bags for all those phones. I wondered what would happen if they ran out of bags... thankfully I don't think anyone was kicked out. What sucked for me was that we had to leave food and drink up at the proctor's table as well! ("What, no snacking during the exam!?")
2. As this took place in a gym, a TV on a balcony wound up blaring the local weather forecast just as the proctors were announcing the instructions in the AM session. It took them a good 5 minutes to figure out how to shut the TV off.
3. We were allowed a little more than an hour for lunch, which was plenty of time to recover from the AM session. However, from the sheer number of examinees (I believe the number was close to 600 that day), we didn't wind up leaving till close to 6 pm!