# SER required for M.S. Degree



## wjustis (Nov 16, 2010)

I live in TX and have just recently completed 3 years of work under a licensed P.E. doing consulting work. Back in 07 I finished my M.S. in electrical engineering and am going to use 133.43© to count this towards one year of experience. I am trying to get my forms together before the Dec 10th deadline and have not been able to determine whether i need to list my M.S. on my work experience record and supply a SER for it.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks!


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## BPZ (Nov 16, 2010)

wjustis said:


> I live in TX and have just recently completed 3 years of work under a licensed P.E. doing consulting work. Back in 07 I finished my M.S. in electrical engineering and am going to use 133.43© to count this towards one year of experience. I am trying to get my forms together before the Dec 10th deadline and have not been able to determine whether i need to list my M.S. on my work experience record and supply a SER for it.
> Any guidance would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!


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## BPZ (Nov 16, 2010)

I also live in Texas and did include my research work and listed my advisor as one of my supervising PEs. I think when you total your engineering experience, it should equal at least 4 years. Good luck!


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## TexAg-Mech/Biomed (Nov 24, 2010)

wjustis said:


> I live in TX and have just recently completed 3 years of work under a licensed P.E. doing consulting work. Back in 07 I finished my M.S. in electrical engineering and am going to use 133.43© to count this towards one year of experience. I am trying to get my forms together before the Dec 10th deadline and have not been able to determine whether i need to list my M.S. on my work experience record and supply a SER for it.
> Any guidance would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks!


Hey Man. I just took the Texas PE exam this past October. I claimed credit for my advanced degrees, so I am familiar with your dilemma. Buckle up, it gets complicated.

Let me be clear; you may claim an advanced degree as a single year of experience, however when you are tallying up your work experience you do not include it there. There is a line item (I forget where) in the instruction packet that tells you NOT to list advanced degrees on your work experience. They are filed under the educational portion of the application. You DO NOT submit a SER for education, even if you are claiming the degree as work experience. Make sense?

In my particular case, I had my 3+ years of actual work experience on the form, plus the advanced degrees, just like you. At the bottom of the work experience form I list only 3 years (just like the instructions say). My application was actually kicked back due to insufficient experience because the reviewer was not aware of the "advanced degree = 1 year of experience" clause, so be prepared to quote it to the reviewer when your application gets kicked back. They just look at the number at the bottom of the experience page. Anything less than 4 years gets kicked back, and they don't automatically flip over and look at the education. . . .its complicated. Can't belive graduate degrees are that rare that they woudn't look at that?

Hope this helps, best of luck with your exam.


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## ptatohed (Nov 24, 2010)

What is a SER?


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## cableguy (Nov 24, 2010)

Supplementary Experience Record - basically like an extra long resume' with all of your work experience since graduating from college. Mine was 10 pages long (been out of school for almost 17 years). Yeah, I put off getting the PE for way too long...


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## ptatohed (Nov 26, 2010)

cableguy said:


> Supplementary Experience Record - basically like an extra long resume' with all of your work experience since graduating from college. Mine was 10 pages long (been out of school for almost 17 years). Yeah, I put off getting the PE for way too long...


O.k., thanks. You guys are throwing the acronym around like it's a household term! I've never heard of it before.

Yeah, me too. I just took the test (Oct '10) for the first time at age 35. I should have started taking it years ago.


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## afewgood (Nov 26, 2010)

ptatohed said:


> cableguy said:
> 
> 
> > Supplementary Experience Record - basically like an extra long resume' with all of your work experience since graduating from college. Mine was 10 pages long (been out of school for almost 17 years). Yeah, I put off getting the PE for way too long...
> ...


do you need to write SERs for all years of your working experiences?

I thought you only need to write 4 years that NCEES required.


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## ptatohed (Nov 26, 2010)

afewgood said:


> ptatohed said:
> 
> 
> > cableguy said:
> ...



afewgood, you replied to my post but I don't think you are talking to me, right?


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## cableguy (Nov 26, 2010)

afewgood said:


> do you need to write SERs for all years of your working experiences?I thought you only need to write 4 years that NCEES required.


My interpretation of the Texas SER was to account for all periods since graduation from college. I wrote about all of my jobs. Some were more 'engineering-ish' than others, so I minimized the lesser jobs (1 page for my 1996-1999 work experience), but wrote a lot about others. I pretty much glossed over the first 8-10 years, and emphasized the most recent stuff. The goal is to show that you've not been just flipping burgers or selling shoes, and that you've progressed in your engineering experience.


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