Domestos_WC
Member
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2018
- Messages
- 9
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Hello everyone,
Just a quick introduction, I am a Structural Engineer from Canada (originally from Europe). I have 6 years of experience in structural engineering only (never done any civils).
I moved to Canada 2 years ago from Europe, I have my education from Poland (BSc) and England (MSc) and I used to work in several European countries before I came here. I had my foreign education assessed by Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) and they said that I need to pass FE Civil exam in order to get my ticket in Canada. OK, I thought and I booked my exam in exam centres in Canada...
It didn't really bother me as I thought I was good at what I was doing (at least that is what other engineers say). I regularly solve complex structural engineering problems and back in the UK I was in special engineering projects team, solving irregular structural analysis and design issues. I was offered to join a partnership in Canada (and I did) and my partners encouraged me to get a ticket.
I didn't really know much about the FE exam, I thought it would be pure structural analysis and design (that is how it looks like in the UK, iStructE chartered engineers must pass structural exam). Then I realized that the entire exam was more complex, many questions covering different aspects of engineering but less complicated. I panicked, things like math, hydraulics and fluid mechanics I had like 8 years ago and they didn't really bothered me since then. I realized I have had not enough time to pass, overall I spent about 30h on the exam. Furthermore, I always thought that differential equations were not covered within the scope of FE Civil exam (it's not mentioned there, even though it's a scope of calculus, but at other disciplines differential equations were distinguished from calculus). I was wrong, I had 3 questions on differential equations )
On the exam day I found the entire on-screen FE Reference book completely disappointing (I went through it before the exam and I purchased a hard copy so I knew what was there). Scrolling was f* up, every time I tried to scroll it would bounce back, zoom-in and zoom-out didn't work (e.g. if I tried to zoom-on on the equation on pg let's say 5 it would zoom-in but on page 4 or 6)... Lots of time wasting just trying to navigate through the FE reference book. I spent 3h on the first part and 2h on the second part, and obviously I run out of time on the second part so I had to quickly guess around 15-20 questions.
Now, I have my results (I knew and I wouldn't pass right away) and I know I need to prepare much more than my first attempt. Stop being an arrogant and prepare like for every other exam. I have my lesson.
Below is my diagnostics and you can see that my performance was really poor. Surveying was on of the parts that I had to guess due to lack of time, I didn't get any preparation on environmental engineering (environmental engineering is separated from civils degree in Europe) etc.
I am thinking about taking on-demand courses at school of PE or at Testmasters, I do not have any in-class prep courses since I am in Canada and this test is mostly US...
Any thoughts, good people?
Just a quick introduction, I am a Structural Engineer from Canada (originally from Europe). I have 6 years of experience in structural engineering only (never done any civils).
I moved to Canada 2 years ago from Europe, I have my education from Poland (BSc) and England (MSc) and I used to work in several European countries before I came here. I had my foreign education assessed by Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) and they said that I need to pass FE Civil exam in order to get my ticket in Canada. OK, I thought and I booked my exam in exam centres in Canada...
It didn't really bother me as I thought I was good at what I was doing (at least that is what other engineers say). I regularly solve complex structural engineering problems and back in the UK I was in special engineering projects team, solving irregular structural analysis and design issues. I was offered to join a partnership in Canada (and I did) and my partners encouraged me to get a ticket.
I didn't really know much about the FE exam, I thought it would be pure structural analysis and design (that is how it looks like in the UK, iStructE chartered engineers must pass structural exam). Then I realized that the entire exam was more complex, many questions covering different aspects of engineering but less complicated. I panicked, things like math, hydraulics and fluid mechanics I had like 8 years ago and they didn't really bothered me since then. I realized I have had not enough time to pass, overall I spent about 30h on the exam. Furthermore, I always thought that differential equations were not covered within the scope of FE Civil exam (it's not mentioned there, even though it's a scope of calculus, but at other disciplines differential equations were distinguished from calculus). I was wrong, I had 3 questions on differential equations )
On the exam day I found the entire on-screen FE Reference book completely disappointing (I went through it before the exam and I purchased a hard copy so I knew what was there). Scrolling was f* up, every time I tried to scroll it would bounce back, zoom-in and zoom-out didn't work (e.g. if I tried to zoom-on on the equation on pg let's say 5 it would zoom-in but on page 4 or 6)... Lots of time wasting just trying to navigate through the FE reference book. I spent 3h on the first part and 2h on the second part, and obviously I run out of time on the second part so I had to quickly guess around 15-20 questions.
Now, I have my results (I knew and I wouldn't pass right away) and I know I need to prepare much more than my first attempt. Stop being an arrogant and prepare like for every other exam. I have my lesson.
Below is my diagnostics and you can see that my performance was really poor. Surveying was on of the parts that I had to guess due to lack of time, I didn't get any preparation on environmental engineering (environmental engineering is separated from civils degree in Europe) etc.
I am thinking about taking on-demand courses at school of PE or at Testmasters, I do not have any in-class prep courses since I am in Canada and this test is mostly US...
Any thoughts, good people?