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My take is this: Even at regular (non-AISC member) price, the Seismic Design Manual is still cheaper than the $500 it will cost to take the exam again. Given that the bulk of the lateral exam is seismic material--and a good chunk of that is expected to be structural steel--there's no excuse...

My company also pays for professional liability insurance. Be forewarned that in some states, you are also personally liable for your work product when you apply your engineering seal.

Short answer: It's never too late. I'm sorry you've had to face such adverse experiences, but I think these types of obstacles easily become character-building strengths in the mind of a determined person. In twenty years, I've never had a prospective employer ask me about my college GPA...

That has to be a new record for CTS!

It looks about as exciting as you might imagine: no marching bands, no cake, no nothin. Hang in there, @Engineerbabu . When you start to break down in tears, and have dreams that you did so horribly on the SE exam that your PE license(s) will be stripped, the release of results is close.

To "pass" the SE exam is to attain a result of "Acceptable" on both exams (Vertical Forces, Lateral Forces) within a 5-year period. You can have an "Acceptable" result on one part of the exam, but you haven't "passed" the SE exam until you've done so on both exams. Hope that clears things up.

I'm going mostly off memory here, but I found the difficulty of the practice exams in the 5th Edition to be very comparable to the difficulty of the actual exam. If I had any recommendations, I would say that treatment of deep foundations (in so far as the SE exam covers deep foundations) and...

Some of you had best thank your lucky stars you don't have to wait for an envelope in the mail like we did back in the day.

You rock, sir. I have a co-worker who will be very happy to know the new edition is forthcoming.

No worries. I think 49 states + DC offer the SE exam, but only 9 have actual SE licensure (several additional states have an SE designation, but not a separate license). I took the exam because the structural design codes have become more complex over the past 20 years, and I foresee a general...

I think you inadvertently make a case for SE licensure (which Maryland does not have). There are plenty of well-documented incidents where licensed Professional Engineers have caused major problems in structural design--including injury and death--because they don't know what they don't know...

I think you understand the concept just fine. "B" is the thickness of the web that transfers horizontal shear between the flanges. It doesn't matter how you do the arithmetic, so long as you arrive at the correct answer.

Best of luck to everyone courageous enough to sit for the exam this week. May the graders have mercy on you.

My understanding (from the last time I read through the requirements) is that a "live" webinar counts as "in-person" (b)(3). A recorded webinar with no "exam" would be considered "self-administered". I know the SE Board suspended these rules--at least for a while--due to the ongoing pandemic...

I've had recent encounters with long lead times for steel joists. The reports I've received are that one supplier currently has a five month lead time, and another is projecting out to November. On one project, we've been able to substitute RedBuilt trusses. Trying to come up with palatable...

Not to get too far into semantics, but using a literal interpretation of ASCE-7, service-level loads are factored too. I encourage my colleagues to use the terms "service" and "strength" to distinguish the load combinations for Allowable Stress and Strength Design, respectively. This may seem...

I think most people will tell you that time is definitely a factor for the PM portion of the exam. With that in mind, it's up to you whether sacrificing five minutes of your time to skim all the problems (and if you have anxiety like me, freak yourself out) before deciding which one to work...

Good on both of you! It's never too late to make a positive step in your career.

I agree with David. You'll drive yourself bonkers trying to anticipate what questions will be on the exam. Hence, my comment above. Everything you need to pass the exam is contained either in the codes, or in your knowledge of structural analysis. At minimum, you'll want to know what...

Not sure what manual you're using, but it looks like the "1.5" factor may be Cu, the Upper Limit on Calculated Period from Table 12.8-1 in ASCE 7? If S1 > 0.2, then Cu < 1.5, and thus using a value of 1.5 for Cu is "conservative" for calculating period (but actually results in a lower value of...