Engagement Record Help

I want to know if anyone has ever been qualified to take the CA Civil PE with the title "Engineering Aide/Engineering Technician/Inspector". I know the board says that sub-professional work is not considered qualifying experience but I felt my experience as an engineering aide qualified as professional because I prepared plans and specs. Some of it traffic using MUTCD and some of it roadway design. Any successful stories out there? Real quick about myself:

-i would like to sit for exam in Oct. 2012

-master's degree in civil eng.(counts as 5 years towards 6 years of experience), graduated may 2011

-worked 5 months as an engineering aide for a local city, may 2011 to october 2011

-working as an engineer from october 2011 to present, 7 months by filing date

Pretty much by the time I file, it will be exactly one year. Anybody think that I'm cutting it too close? Should I just wait until April 2013?

where did you see that a masters = 5 yrs of experience? Most states only give 1 yr of credit for a masters degree.

Counting 4yrs to the undergrad and 1 for the masters, my guess.

CA has different rules. With Master's you only need 12 months of qualifying experience. http://www.pels.ca.gov/applicants/flowchart_for_pe.pdf

Read your state laws and regs on what qualifies. How you describe what you did can be important. E.g. using Autocad is not qualifying, however, you may find that if you go to the site and make the drawings and specs yourself, that counts, or not.

The key factor is that you must have worked directly under the guidance of a PE. If he/she will validate your work as "professional" then I think you might be ok.

Yeah that's correct, with a master's degree you only need 12 months of qualifying experience for California. I might as well try and apply, I know that the P.E.'s I worked under as an engineering aide will approve for me to sit. I'm just worried about the board giving me a hard time about my previous job title. I don't want to have to study for the October exam and find out two weeks before that I'm not qualified.

The important part would be to emphasize the work done, and illustrate "progressive engineering experience". Most boards realize newgrads aren't necessarily going to be redesigning the Golden Gate Bridge right out of college, but they do expect you to do more than just quantity take-off's. As long as you show exactly what you were doing and how you grew as an engineer because of it, you should be fine.

My first job out of college was a field office engineering position with a heavy highway contractor. For the first 6 months or so I spent most of my day doing timesheets, making copies of plans, running errands, ordering materials (concrete, aggregate, asphalt, etc).

My advice is to fill out the application. Worst case is that they say no, you wait 6 months, and you apply again with 6 months more credible experience. Make the board tell you no, because if you don't fill out the application you're already making the decision for them...

Cool, thanks for your advice. I'm going to give it a shot and apply. I'll let you guys know what happens.

You need 12 months of experience by the final filing date, which is May 1st for the Oct 2012 exam. Experience gained after the filing date does not count towards the necessary 12 months of experience.

Yeah I saw that, so it looks like I can't take it until April 2013.

My engagement record has not worked well in my favor.

VTEnviro said:

My engagement record has not worked well in my favor.

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I was going to say something, then I changed my mind...maybe later.

VTEnviro said:

My engagement record has not worked well in my favor.

Click to expand...