# Experience Question



## awalborn (Jan 22, 2011)

Hey,

I have passed the FE exam a year after I graduated. Does my work experience count towards the PE for the time since I graduated college.

Also, my experience is not under any PE's I work for a small company with about 20 engineers, none of which have a PE. Will this experience count?

State requirements:

"All applicants must provide verification of at least 4 years of acceptable engineering work experience obtained after having received an acceptable bachelors degree. Work experience must be verified by five persons, three of whom must be licensed professional engineers."

Basically, is there anything I can do to get around this and become licensed?

thanks


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## McEngr (Jan 22, 2011)

awalborn said:


> Hey,
> I have passed the FE exam a year after I graduated. Does my work experience count towards the PE for the time since I graduated college.
> 
> Also, my experience is not under any PE's I work for a small company with about 20 engineers, none of which have a PE. Will this experience count?
> ...



I am pretty sure that you cannot count any of your time for your experience. I don't know EVERY respective state's rules, but all states that I am licensed in require you to work 4 years under the supervision of a PE except for California.


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## Brian G (Jan 22, 2011)

You need to check with your state board. Alabama allows a non-PE to verify your work experience, but the non-PE has to fill out a mini-application listing his/her experience. The wording is something similar to this: The board will allow the non-PE person to verify your experience if the board would approve the non-PE person to take the PE exam also. that is what i had to do because there are no PEs in the branch i work in.

just check with your licensing board. The info you are looking for is most likely in their FAQs.

Brian


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## DynaMechEng (Jan 23, 2011)

Having just submitted my application (already passed the PE), I ran into the same thing. The paperwork asks for 5 references and for 3 of the 5 to be PE's. It did NOT state that the verifiers all had to be direct supervisors. In fact, the paperwork asks you to check off the type of relationship (supervisor/colleague/friend/acquaintance/etc.). These people should have familiarity with the type and level of work that you do. Think about any professional interaction you may have had with some PE's throughout the course of your work.

I think that as long as you did real engineering work, and there is someone to verify it (PE or no PE), it will count. I'd like to think that the Boards are smart enough to realize that everyone can't work under PE's for 4 years, especially considering how many exempt industries there are.


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## jrf500 (Jan 23, 2011)

I agree with "DynaMechEngr". But everything totally depends on the state. The way your rules read, sound similar to the two states I've been allowed to take the test in. 3 of my 4 years were NOT under a PE. But the board instead looked at my experience to see if it was "acceptable, progressive, non-repetetive engineering work". If it was, they let me take the test. I had to find 3 references who were PE's, but none of them were my supervisors or even within my company. Have your supervisor be one of your non-PE references, find 3 PE references who will fill out a form for you and you'll be OK I think. But call your state board, most are very willing to help and will answer any questions you need.

Good luck!


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## HerrKaLeun (Jan 23, 2011)

you always can try to appeal and explain your situation to get exempt. The person working for the board may say something different than what the board will decide.

You may be able to use consultants or clients that are PE you work with as references.

How can an engineering firm of 20 not have any PE? what industry is that? None with PE, really?

Once you are a PE you should rule the company, at least get a 100% raise ...


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## NorCalEng (Jan 24, 2011)

awalborn said:


> Hey,
> I have passed the FE exam a year after I graduated. Does my work experience count towards the PE for the time since I graduated college.
> 
> Also, my experience is not under any PE's I work for a small company with about 20 engineers, none of which have a PE. Will this experience count?
> ...




There are exceptions to just about anything. You must do the work to find the exception... loop holes. If you read the FAQ they mention something about non-PE references. Good luck.


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## redsouther (Jan 24, 2011)

It really depends on your state. I ran into some serious issues with this in GA because I had the same problem - I worked for a company that had no PE on staff, but was doing valid engineering work. However, in GA, your work must be "supervised" by a registered PE in order to be deemed "quality experience". My company tried to get around this by paying an outside consulting engineer to supervise and seal all of my engineering work, but even this was not good enough for the board (despite them telling me otherwise at the beginning of my 4 year period...).

In the long run, it cost me an additional 3 years (I had to change jobs and work IN and office with a registered PE) before I could take the exam. Make sure you read the board's rules and your state law. In my case, even getting an email from the director telling me that my situation was satisfactory was not good enough.


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