# Help: SE wanting to take PE



## jfluckey (Oct 11, 2013)

Dear Civil Engineering Community,

I have approached my professional career in an unorthodox way. I obtained my degree in Mechanical Engineering and found a job doing structural building engineering in Indiana. In Indiana, we are not discipline specific, so I sat for and passed the 16 hour SE exam to obtain my Indiana "PE" license. I have no Civil background, but need to obtain my Civil license for comity to certain (mainly west coast) states. I will obtain my S.E. license in IL because I have passed the SE exam and there are no PE prerequisites. However, with just the SE exam being passed, I cannot get either a PE or SE in, for example, CA via comity.

So my question. What do you suggest for learning material based on a structural background? I'm hoping for an answer such that the study package from PPI and the CERM will suffice, but I honestly don't know. I'm pretty much clueless on the other topics of the PE exam other than structural. Can I rely heavily on my structural knowledge to pass this exam?


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## ptatohed (Oct 12, 2013)

None of us are experts in all PE exam topics. If you can graduate in Mech Eng, pass the FE and pass the tough 16hr SE, you can pass the Civil PE. You can purchase the usual material everyone buys (CERM, lots of practice problems, your depth-specific references, etc.) and/or take a good class. Spend 300 hours studying/problem practicing and you'll be fine. Good luck.


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## texan (Nov 10, 2013)

Being a Mechanical Engineer you may not be exposed to Concrete, wood and masonry but you were able to learn and pass SE. Similarly you need to know other fields for civil like transportation, environmental, geotechnical etc. Beside that you need to study survey also.

Good Luck!


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## Lomarandil (Nov 11, 2013)

Agreed... survey/transportation will probably be the farthest outside your envelope, but you should be able to lean pretty heavily on your MechE and structural background to answer 75% of the questions.

A little common sense and some quick overviews of the other civil disciplines from a conceptual level will get you most of the way home on the rest.

(I suppose for Cali, you'll see some seismic. The concepts aren't difficult from a dynamics perspective, but you'll want to be very familiar with how ASCE 7 works to simplify seismic problems down to the codified method).


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## palvarez83 (Nov 17, 2013)

I don't think you will have a problem with your background. I too have a mechanical engineering degree and just studied for the Civil PE. My biggest struggle was the structural stuff (which you should just have covered with your SE experience). The water resources and environmental will be pretty straight forward given you fluid mechanics and chemistry classes in college. The transportation stuff is pretty much dynamics from college. Knowing where to look up the projectile motion equations will get you through it. You will also need to know the geometry behind the vertical and horizontal curve equations. I did have to learn the Geo-technical stuff, but it is pretty straight forward and I imagine you already have to know the basics of it given your SE work. I think the only stuff that might be new is the construction topics.

Here is my advice to you. Buy the Civil Engineering reference manual by Lindberg and just go through all of the 5 topic sections and do the sample problems(which is a separate book). This book will more than adequately prepare you to pass the AM section and should be the only reference you need. I don't really think you will need additional code books for this that you don't already use for structural. When you sign up for the PE, definitely select structural as your afternoon depth section. Again, I think you are in a good position and will not struggle too much.


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