Recent content by dakota_79

Why? It's been made easier. Old: Surveying, Seismic, SE1, SE2, Western Zone "SE3" New: Surveying, Seismic, Civil PE, 16-hr SE They've effectively swapped the old SE3 for the civil PE and an SE1+2 that are slightly harder than what they used to be. Additionally, the surveying and seismic are...

Yikes! I don't feel an ounce of sympathy for either of them. Part of being a professional (and a Professional) is taking the responsibility to understand the most basic of instructions and requirements. If their heads are so far up their rears that they don't know what day the exam is or what...

As usual: what McEngr said. Especially the part about thinking of it not as a short term obstacle to achieving a title, but more as a long term investment in your skill set with merely the side effect of passing the exam.

The NCEES sample exam is very representative of both time constraints and level of difficulty of the actual exam. It was wise of you to treat it as a simulated exam and you're much better prepared having done that (even if you did poorly on the simulation!). As you observed, you really don't...

Great poll! On passing percentage, I'd be really really curious to know what they actually are, but it's impossible to really know in the same way we know what the pass rate is for a single component exam. Lower bound on what it actually currently is would be in the ballpark of 45% x 46% =...

I feel your guys' pain. The apex of the pain probably comes in about 2-3 weeks, when the wait still seems millenia away but the second-guessing is getting even worse as the memory of it all gets hazier. Best of luck to you all!

What they said.

Should've figured, my bad. See if this helps: http://www.scribd.com/doc/35268258/Wilson-Bearing-Pressures-for-Rectangular-Footings-With-Biaxial-Uplift

I'm thinking you're over-complicating it, which leads me to believe I may be missing what you're trying to do. But to check bearing stresses under an odd-shaped footing (or for non-orthogonal lateral loads on a rectangular footing - same thing really), you just calc the moment of inertia of the...

What those guys said. These areas are really places where you can focus on showing off your engineering judgement, as opposed to ability to find prescriptive stuff in the codes. Any analysis stuff is still the same: loads, load paths, capacity, serviceability, constructability.

ip, I'd say the SEAOC volumes provide zero help for the vertical component, so you should be alright then. The 3 volumes focus 90% on seismic, 10% on wind, neither of which is covered on the vertical component. Still a good set to have around the office, though, and helpful to know for other...

Yeah, I found (and still find) that statement a little confusing. I guess my approach was to not overthink it, and if anything came up on the exam where it seemed 2nd order effects would be non-negligible, used the 3.3.5 strength method which accounts for those effects. Not sure if that was...

Nice! I did the exact same thing, except took it a step further and on top of the content weight, weighted each category by reverse level of comfort 0-1 (ie steel for me was 0.2, wood 0.8) and multiplied those 2 weights to come up with a total emphasis weight and portioned out my time from that.

Thanks, C! Sounds like you've got a solid plan, I'm sure you'll get over that final hump this fall. The SEAOC V1 will take you just about clause by clause through ASCE7 Ch 12, and you'll find it really helpful for thoroughly understanding that chapter's minutia. That, plus know the...

What Bombo said. Polish up your resume and find those greener pastures.