Study On Your Own vs. Review Courses

[Andy Lin]

It would be fun if you could also explain the reason(s) behind your choice.

(I'm just curious because I have something coming up in January that will help those who plan to study on their own - and might also help those who can't decide.)

 

[Andy Lin]

Btw, I studied on my own because I did that for the PE and it worked out... so I decided to do it for the SE (also the review courses were a bit expensive).

 

[CyclonePE]

I studied on my own. I have 3 kids so I could not make it to any regular class times. Most of my studying was after they were in bed.

 

[Andy Lin]

I studied on my own. I have 3 kids so I could not make it to any regular class times. Most of my studying was after they were in bed.

Nice - that's dedication.

 

[Moose70]

For both components of the SE I decided to take an online review course. I felt this would be the most efficient way to study, and provide a little peace-of-mind that I covered (or at least had notes for) all the material on the exams. Since I only took one component at a time, it made the time I had to devote to clas more manageable and reduced the amount of material I needed to know for each exam period. Considering I passed both Lateral and Vertical (Bridges) on my first try, I consider the review course(s) to have been a worthwhile investment.

Aside from helping to provide significant structure to my review, one of the greatest benefits was that I ended up with a binder full of notes and solved example problems, which I referenced several times during the actual exams, and I felt comfortable with all the specifications. Not all the material was completely relevant, as a bridge guy I dozed off during the detailed depth reviews of NDS, ACI, AISC, and masonry, but each class starts off with general review of each specification which was more than sufficient to handle the morning multiple choice problems. A downside is that they also covered very, very basic stuff too (RC beam design, elementary statics, dead load computations, etc) that was not an effective use of my time.

From a financial perspective, it definitely wasn't cheap, but my company would reimburse me for the classes if I passed. So mentally this helped since had some more "skin in the game". The exam is already tough enough on the wallet with all the references and review materials you need to buy, and knowing that if I failed I'd be out the course fee gave me a little extra motivation. Most review courses offer a free retake of the class if you attend all the sessions, so there is a little bit of a safety net.

***Please note that simply attending a review course is not enough to pass these exams. You cannot substitute listening to a lecture for sitting down and grinding through problems. I probably had about a 50/50 split between time spent in "class" and time spent actually doing practice problems/exams.***

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Studied on my own. Having taught the PPI SE review course I would 100% recommend taking a review course unless you are either the most motivated person in the world or have a lot of free time.

That said, I agree with Moose above; taking a review course alone will not let you pass, grinding through review problems is required no matter what.

 

[Giuseppe]

Studied on my own. 

Generally speaking, I think review courses tend to evoke a false sense of security in many individuals that decide to fork over the money to participate.

To me there is simply no substitute for establishing and executing one's own plan of attack in its entirety.  I sense that people often shy away from such an approach because, for a variety of reasons, they can't commit to a method that is devoid of perceived redundancies and assurances.  Done properly it tends to be a very raw and rigorous process, the success of which depends entirely on the commitment and preparation of a single entity: you.  There are no supposed benchmarks of success or aptitude established by people (experts?) whose strengths and weaknesses likely do not remotely resemble your own.  No shiny packaging or slick marketing.  Just you, a pile of books and references, and your own inescapable self-assessment.  Quite literally it is a very pure form of the maxim "know thyself".

Sure, there are always exceptions.  I'm not suggesting one method is superior to another.  But to me it seems as if there is a certain unavoidable "one size fits all" feel to review courses that would actually require extra work to navigate around in order to find something resembling a personal fit.

 

[trees]

I studied on my own. I have 2 kids so I could not make it to any regular class times. Also the review course is too expansive.

 

[smahurin]

I studied on my own.  I think everyone has to decide what works for them, and I realize that everyone's learning styles will be different.  For me, I spent quite a bit of time both reviewing my Grad school notes and even re-writing and compacting some of my notebooks into a single notebook "friendlier" version.  But really what I thought was helpful was going through example problems.  Everyone will have their own opinion on the exam.  But the thing that I went away from it thinking (and I don't think I'm breaking any rules in mentioning this) was that the exam wasn't a test of a structural engineers technical or mechanics acumen... it was largely an exercise in locating obscure code references.  While as a structural engineer I spend much of my day working with the codes and I think I'm fairly knowledgeable and familiar with the structures, there are just some aspects and sections of the codes I just don't deal with in my job and are therefore unfamiliar.  And so doing practice problems wasn't necessarily helpful on the exam from a technical standpoint as much as it was familiarizing myself with portions of the codes I don't deal with as often.  It really felt like on the exam, If you could find the obscure code reference, you win!  If not, on to the next problem.  Although I think the studying, in general, WAS very helpful in a broader sense to my technical ability disregarding the exam.  And regardless of how you choose to study, I think that any of the studying spent will likely be beneficial to someone.