SE: Vertical or Lateral First?

I'm thinking of registering for either vertical or lateral component of the SE exam. I'm more inclined to take the vertical first. Your thoughts, especially who have taken or passed the SE, would be really appreciated.

I'd take both rather than one at a time. I did it one at a time and passed in the statistical average of taking each part twice. Thus, I was stuck with over 2 years of studying and stress for the SE exam. This was brutal and I don't recommend it. The biggest thing I found was once I studied and went to the exam for the first time I ended up missing some problems or finding some gaps in my study knowledge. Then, I restudied and went back and passed with confidence. So, really just seeing the exam once is often what you'll need to pass.

In that end I would take both sections; you'll likely pass one or none. After that you could take one at a time and hopefully pass that one the second try. Or, if you've thankfully passed one on the first try, then you only need to pass one more. Finally, this gives you the unlikely but definitely possible chance of passing both in one try which is obviously the most beneficial. As study time will be rough for the first time going to both exam days I'd recommend taking a review course. Most of these will give you a free re-take of the course if you fail and these will give you a rigid schedule and a good baseline to your studies so that you can make sure you're not missing too much in your knowledge base for the exam.

Obviously, all this costs time and money. If this is a true deal breaker then I agree that taking one course at a time is probably best. In that case, I'd take vertical first. It's the obvious choice and as there is a lot more material needed to study for it's good to get this out of the way first. Plus, many principles carry over to the lateral so it's not wasted study time. Whereas for lateral a lot of the seismic and lateral force analysis methods aren't as useful on the vertical. I'd personally say lateral is the easier exam (though I took buildings, your mileage may vary) and thus I would save it for last as you're likely to be getting a little burned out by the time you get to it.

I passed the Vertical in Oct and am waiting on Lateral results from April.  Everyone I have talked to has recommended splitting the exams up and those that did take them in the same weekend regretted it.  In my opinion, a big reason for the drop in pass rates from vertical to lateral is the shear mental and physical fatigue after the Friday vertical.  Coming back on Saturday morning will be the last thing you will want to do.  The lateral in my opinion has more difficult material but the volume of concepts they can test you on is limited.  The vertical is much more broad but the material is easier.  I recommend taking vertical first because you will gain a wider breadth of knowledge.  Those concepts will still serve you well on the lateral and you shouldn't have to study nearly as much for the lateral.   

I agree with TehMighty here. I took the vertical in April and doubt I passed. I spent the weekend after the test writing down as much as I could remember about the problems that I struggled with, obviously not to memorize them (won't likely see the exact same thing again) but to focus on topics for morning studying and create a lit of checks for the afternoon. I made some mistakes in the afternoon that I forgot in a rush that will apply to any of the options that I may see again. I wish I had the same for the lateral. 

I would recommend studying for a year for the first attempt, spend the first 6 months reading and tabbing codes, making flowcharts, organizing, etc. Then spend the next 6 months working problems, with or without a class.  With more time, when the inevitable burnout occurs, it's possible to not feel pressured to cram and just take a week or so off from the whole thing to be able to hit it again fresh. Then, take both days and adjust after the results come out. Of course the flaw with this is the possibility of a code change, especially with ACI 2014 coming up, but short of passing both the first try with a few months of study there's no avoiding this.

Also, while there are plenty of topics for all of us that do not apply specifically to our careers, a lot of it does apply very well. So, needing to study again to really get a grasp of the material will have a career long payoff and is not as much time wasted as the PE. 

jc2015 said:

In my opinion, a big reason for the drop in pass rates from vertical to lateral is the shear mental and physical fatigue after the Friday vertical.  Coming back on Saturday morning will be the last thing you will want to do.  The lateral in my opinion has more difficult material but the volume of concepts they can test you on is limited.  The vertical is much more broad but the material is easier.  I recommend taking vertical first because you will gain a wider breadth of knowledge.  Those concepts will still serve you well on the lateral and you shouldn't have to study nearly as much for the lateral.   

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This is a good summary and does touch on one point that I didn't make. If you absolutely need to pass with the fewest number of attempts (for example, on states where after three attempts you need to reapply to the state board) then it would be worth splitting them up. I also agree highly that after one day of SE exams the absolutely last thing you want to do is dive into another one.

VTBridge said:

Also, while there are plenty of topics for all of us that do not apply specifically to our careers, a lot of it does apply very well. So, needing to study again to really get a grasp of the material will have a career long payoff and is not as much time wasted as the PE. 

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Off topic but this is a great note! It's a big reason why I took the SE exam in a region that does not require the SE.

Great points! Thank you for the input!

Passed October SE Gravity.  Then passed April SE Lateral. 

For my study style, it simply wouldn't have worked to take on both in the same weekend.  By separating them I was able to throw all efforts into the specifics of each.  The duration of my "study commitment" ended up being less than a whole calendar year.  I was fortunate to have my plan end up with the intended results, and I didn't have to rely on a failure serving as a trial run.

I would always recommend taking the two sections separately, and would suggest gravity be taken first simply because, intuitively, it's easier material conceptually (not necessarily statistically).  

I took both at once and passed both the first try.  I'm personally glad I did both at once.  While it required "some" more studying up front for the exams, I suspect I didn't do twice the amount of studying I would have done had I just taken one exam.   Realistically, while its great to tell yourself "I'm going to spend 100hrs on the vert and 100hrs on the lat regardless of when I take it"... I suspect it doesn't play out that way.  Whatever free time you can allot to studying prior to an exam, be it 1 or both exams, you'll put into studying.  If you take both and pass none, well you know what to expect now.  If you take both and pass one, you know what to expect and you have one passed under your belt.  If you take both and pass both, well you don't have to stress or study for any test ever again.

I'm sure you save time, or stress by only taking 1 at a time.  I realize I'm in the minority but I just don't see much drawback to taking both at once.  You're not wasting study time, your not lessening the stress, and the upside is you may pass both the first time and save yourself oodles in future study time and stress.  

I should proof read before hitting submit.  I meant "I'm not sure you save time or stress by doing 1 at a time"... 

I would recommend taking both separately. That's what I did and worked out since I passed on the first try for each. I don't see how anyone could do them both in the same weekend. Both for studying, and the weekend itself. I was wiped out after taking each component and would not have done well if I had to take another one the next day. For those of you that have done it, you are a rare breed!  

I would start studying at least 6 months out for each component. Of course, there will be that interim period where you have finished one component and don't know if you passed or not. I assumed I passed and it worked out. But, if I had failed I could have pretty easily switched gears. I didn't re-tab my codes, etc. 

Which component to take first? I took lateral (buildings) first. I actually found lateral easier to study for because you know a large majority of the test will cover ASCE 7 seismic, along with the seismic provisions in the material codes. There won't be a lot of "off the wall" type stuff that you may have to consider for vertical (ice loads, two-way slabs, for example). When it came to studying for vertical loads I pretty much just did example problems out of study guides and went down the NCEES specification list. There is so much out there that could be asked that it makes it more difficult to study for.  Everyone assumes the vertical component is easier, but I would say it is every bit as difficult as the lateral component.  As someone said above, the lower pass rate for lateral is probably due to fatigue from taking the vertical component the day before. But sometimes they are very similar, so don't take the vertical component lightly! 

Both same time is suicide (my opinion of course), there are some freaks of nature like smahurin that can do both at the same time. I was so wiped out mentally after each day that I couldn't imagine taking another one the following day. As far as which one, eh. I think Lateral is more narrowed down to what they will ask you, but the questions are harder. Vertical is more broad and the questions are slightly easier. If you have never done lateral before (like myself), then take vertical first and save time for lateral later on.

I wholeheartedly agree with the last two posts.  I took both in one weekend Fall 2015 and before I even finished the morning of Day 2 I knew I was going to fail purely due to mental capacity.  My hand was cramping from writing on the afternoon design problems too.  Separately you give yourself the time to focus and prepare yourself not just for the types of questions but the fact it is an 8 hour day of testing.  I don't know many people who have the attention span to sit two days in a row for 8 hours a day solving difficult problems.  Personally as a bridge engineer vertical was "easier" for me in that I felt like I had done a lot of the topic covered in grad school or in practice.  I am also in a very low seismic area so lateral is obviously less familiar.  I am currently waiting on my lateral results but taking the one day only this spring I felt much better about how it went.

Very interesting reading all of these, I think I'll have to switch to recommending people take the SE exam one section at a time as it appears to be the consensus.

I took them back to back to get a feel for them in Spring of 2014 after taking a $1400 Kaplan prep course and buying a bunch of references and practice problems. Walked out thinking I passed vertical and failed lateral. Found out I failed both and realized I was in over my head and the Kaplan Course was inadequate in many areas. The codes changed due to ASCE 7-10 and most of my references were outdated. Baby number three was on its way and I needed to build an addition on my house so life got in the way. Once the house addition was done I got back into study mode and took Vertical in Oct 2015. Results came back as a fail (barely) and I decided I would be better off passing the PE exam first. I took the PE Civil Str in April 2016 and found out I passed first try.

I'm going to take a break for a couple years now that baby number four is on its way and I'm fighting for a partner position at my engineering firm. After the dust settles I'll be signing up for another SE course and will keep working until I pass it. But I will take Vertical until I pass before I take Lateral again. One at a time is enough for me. Also I'm a building engineer from FL, so AASHTO and seismic were foreign to me until I started studying.

So knowing that I passed vertical the first try, I definitely recommend taking them one at a time. However, there is always the chance of passing both, and the benefit of seeing both in the event of a failure by sitting for both in a weekend, so it's hard to give a good recommendation without the hindsight. 

Okay so I got my results and the final tally is that I passed vertical in the fall when I took both then lateral in the spring when I took it alone.  I will admit it was helpful to have seen the exam even though I failed but the money to take the exam was tough to part with if your company doesn't reimburse.  If I were to do it all again I would take them one at a time.  In hindsight I can see I clearly focused on vertical rather than dividing my time for the first go around.  I couldn't keep all the information at the forefront where it needed to be to be successful so one area became the focus because I wanted to at least pass one.  I think it's a truly personal thing.

BridgeSewist said:

I wholeheartedly agree with the last two posts.  I took both in one weekend Fall 2015 and before I even finished the morning of Day 2 I knew I was going to fail purely due to mental capacity.  My hand was cramping from writing on the afternoon design problems too.  Separately you give yourself the time to focus and prepare yourself not just for the types of questions but the fact it is an 8 hour day of testing.  I don't know many people who have the attention span to sit two days in a row for 8 hours a day solving difficult problems.  Personally as a bridge engineer vertical was "easier" for me in that I felt like I had done a lot of the topic covered in grad school or in practice.  I am also in a very low seismic area so lateral is obviously less familiar.  I am currently waiting on my lateral results but taking the one day only this spring I felt much better about how it went.

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So this is super random and off-topic but the hand cramping reminded me... When I took the SE my hands were super drying and cracking, by the afternoon sections of both days the dry cracking in my hands started to bleed (a little) and I was literally smearing blood over the essay response pages as I was writing.  All the essay response pages ended up a very light shade of pink by the end of the exam.  Gross... probably, but what was I to do?  Ask to be excused from the exam for an hour while I ran to the nearest store and pick up some hand cream probably wasn't going to fly.  I did (weirdly?) get a chuckle afterwards thinking I had literally taken the SE exam in blood...

I'm weird, dunno, that comment just reminded me of that fact.  

Just passed Lateral Bridge first try.  In the months prior to registration, I had been doing a lot of seismic design at work, so I felt the lateral would be easier.   If you split the test up, I think you should look at your practice tests and ask yourself which component are you more comfortable with?  This should help you decide which component to tackle first.  Good luck.  

I definitely recommend to take two exams separately. I took my Vertical April 2015, the Lateral April 2016 and passed both of them the first time. I would recommend to take vertical first because most of the structural engineers know gravity loads very well so if you can pass the vertical first that could build up some confidence in yourself.