April 2019 SE Results Thread

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Good morning, beautiful people. I hope you are all having a MARVELOUS Monday! Has anyone seen the new Hellboy movie? If so, is it worth watching? I didn't really care for the Ron Perlman version, but I guess I'm in the minority there.

 
 Dear @FutureSE ,

I can understand your point of view, and I'm not trying to denigrate you in any sense, It's clearly a complex issue. As a matter of fact, I would be pleased to hear that you passed the exam. With respect to your statements/post above, please see my response below as follows:

Receiving this result left me bitter as hell. I was furious.
Acceptable

I think you are reading too far into my idea of litigation.
Acceptable

I looked up challenging the grading of the afternoon, but NCEES doesn't allow that.
Acceptable

if I get the grading back and I somehow didn't pass. I will absolutely go Hiroshima on that ass to see the exam. I will not take NO for an answer and the easiest option they will have is to just allow me to see the damn thing.
Unacceptable

I will pay for their time, the lawyer, the travel, the proctor, and an armed guard if need be, but I will see it.
Unacceptable

I used engineer boards as my personal psychologist.
Uber Acceptable

If I legitimately failed, I'll learn from whatever I did wrong and move on, but I can't and absolutely won't sit here and just let them give me a "Sorry, try again" without me knowing EXACTLY why.  
Unacceptable

I am a practical and reasonable individual.
Improvement required

Sincerely,

Dean Di-agnostic

 
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In all seriousness, let's try to keep pending the conversation civilized.

 
Duke, I appreciate your view point but I simply don't agree.  Competent doctors pass med school but can't pass boards...and I'm not sure if anyone would want that doctor practicing on them without the license.  I know it sounds harsh but that's the reality of it.  To me to call yourself an SE means you love this stuff, you are passionate and it makes you tick.  I truly believe if those things are all true then a person will eventually pass.  As opposed to the PE that I feel in some way is more token and just a thing you gotta take and pass.  
I appreciate an opinion from the other side. I agree that the reality is not many people would want someone who can't say they have professional licensure to act as an EOR on their project. But to call yourself an SE all you have to do is "demonstrate competence" and pass the exam, there is no metric for passion.

 I find it hard to believe that test taking skills / anxiety is the problem considering most if not all the people here have a PE, got through at least an undergraduate program and quite possibly a Masters.  So we've all taken tests before and know what it's about.   
I'm pretty confident that most SE's would agree, that the current SE exams are in a league of their own when it comes to testing. The difficulty is far beyond any college course I personally have taken.

I don't think watering down the test is the solution.  Especially if the claim is simply that it's not fair.  How is it fair to the people who have passed already if they were to make it easier?  
I don't think watering down the content is the solution either. IMO speed is just too much of a factor on the exam. And TBH it is a competence test, fairness to past test takers either way shouldn't play a role in what should be required for competence. I've been a part of peer reviewing some pretty scary calculation sets from SE's and I'm not going to complain that in the way back when it was easier to get the SE license.

I don't have a good answer on how to improve the exam, but I would happily settle for it being offered every 3 months and it costing half as much. The high price tag and NCEES's closed doors policy on this exam really has a bad faith feel to me.

At any rate I'm sincerely hopeful that everyone involved in this conversation passes or will pass this test bc the fact we're all here talking about it means we care.
I agree, best of luck.

 
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 Dear @FutureSE ,

I can understand your point of view, and I'm not trying to denigrate you in any sense, It's clearly a complex issue. As a matter of fact, I would be pleased to hear that you passed the exam. With respect to your statements/post above, please see my response below as follows:

Acceptable

Acceptable

Acceptable

Unacceptable

Unacceptable

Uber Acceptable

Unacceptable

Improvement required

Sincerely,

Dean Di-agnostic
Kudos. That made me laugh. I can admire the wit and the fact there is at least one other agnostic trolling the boards. The fact still remains though, I KNOW I passed this time. There is no "Maybe." Basically, the entirety of my previous statements boil down to the following: There is no conceivable way for me to fail the exam with this administration short of grading incompetency. I've been frustrated in the past, but I have put forth the effort and the study to be where I needed to be. I slammed that exam around like the Rock laying the smack down. I do NOT suspect I will get any result except the Acceptable result I expect. Therefore, if I were to happen to see some result other than Acceptable, I would know shenanigans were afoot. I'm a veteran with this thing now. I want to make new fault lines in the Earth's crust just so I can use some special seismic stuff. Sadly, if I had contractors cut in dogbones in my current line of work and location, they would run me out of town.

 
Kudos. That made me laugh. I can admire the wit and the fact there is at least one other agnostic trolling the boards. The fact still remains though, I KNOW I passed this time. There is no "Maybe." Basically, the entirety of my previous statements boil down to the following: There is no conceivable way for me to fail the exam with this administration short of grading incompetency. I've been frustrated in the past, but I have put forth the effort and the study to be where I needed to be. I slammed that exam around like the Rock laying the smack down. I do NOT suspect I will get any result except the Acceptable result I expect. Therefore, if I were to happen to see some result other than Acceptable, I would know shenanigans were afoot. I'm a veteran with this thing now. I want to make new fault lines in the Earth's crust just so I can use some special seismic stuff. Sadly, if I had contractors cut in dogbones in my current line of work and location, they would run me out of town.
Made me lol - im embarrased to say Ive thought the same...always good when we get paid to study!

By the way, those luxury condos are to serve as shelter from zombies during the next nuclear war. Thats auto SDC G (apocalypse exception - gotta see aashto for that one).

 
Hello everyone! It is a Terrific Tuesday here in the southeast! I just wanted to wish a good morning to all of my very extra special super best friends (that's all of you guys, btw). One more day down, only forever and a day to go.

 
Hello everyone! It is a Terrific Tuesday here in the southeast! I just wanted to wish a good morning to all of my very extra special super best friends (that's all of you guys, btw). One more day down, only forever and a day to go.
Bonjour monsieur. To your point earlier about wanting fault lines made in your area so you can design special seismic stuff...I had a project with some accidental torsion recently and I was FAR more enthused than I should have been. I was looking for ways to use things I have ingrained in my head from this test. You've reached a new low when you're praying for overstrength.  

 
Bonjour monsieur. To your point earlier about wanting fault lines made in your area so you can design special seismic stuff...I had a project with some accidental torsion recently and I was FAR more enthused than I should have been. I was looking for ways to use things I have ingrained in my head from this test. You've reached a new low when you're praying for overstrength.  
HAHA. That's funny. I had a square two story SDC B building recently where the seismic system was moment frames on one side and an ordinary reinforced CMU shear wall on the other. The wall was so much stiffer than the moment frames that the inclusion of accidental torsion (just the minimum 5%) caused the center of rigidity to be outside the building footprint. I thought it was an interesting situation and the first time I've seen it in my career. Wind still controlled as usual. All of my clients like 5' parapets, it makes me sad.

Quick question to all of you. Something interesting I find in the code is that seismic has a 0.7 ASD multiplier while wind has a 0.6 ASD multiplier. This creates a situation where, depending on design methodology and materials, wind can control LRFD design while seismic controls ASD design. I've never seen this personally, but have any of you experienced this? If so, how did you handle it? The conservative assumption is to check both, and detail accordingly, but it just seems odd to me since these two load cases don't "line up."

 
While we wait for our results, just wanted to let you all know, if you are trying to get your continuuing ed satisfied - I just had mine waived for studying and taking both parts of this exam. I didnt take a class.

I was told I am the first person to ask this question. So just goes to show that it never hurts to ask!

 
That's pretty neat and I think it was smart of you to ask. But..... probably one of the top ten life lessons I have learned is...... It most certainly can hurt to ask.

 
While we wait for our results, just wanted to let you all know, if you are trying to get your continuuing ed satisfied - I just had mine waived for studying and taking both parts of this exam. I didnt take a class.

I was told I am the first person to ask this question. So just goes to show that it never hurts to ask!
Oddly enough, I was told the exact opposite after asking this question by my state board. I was informed that the class would count towards the CEU's but passing the test would not. Probably depends on who you talk to and what mood they are in that day.

 
That's pretty neat and I think it was smart of you to ask. But..... probably one of the top ten life lessons I have learned is...... It most certainly can hurt to ask.
Yes, Sir! Never, absolutely, never ask as woman if she is pregnant under any circumstances whatsoever. Also, never ask your wife why she is overreacting. It's another very bad idea. Last bit of sage advice, is never ask a police officer where to buy drugs. They don't find it funny. Maybe their uniform is too tight, who knows.

 
HAHA. That's funny. I had a square two story SDC B building recently where the seismic system was moment frames on one side and an ordinary reinforced CMU shear wall on the other. The wall was so much stiffer than the moment frames that the inclusion of accidental torsion (just the minimum 5%) caused the center of rigidity to be outside the building footprint. I thought it was an interesting situation and the first time I've seen it in my career. Wind still controlled as usual. All of my clients like 5' parapets, it makes me sad.

Quick question to all of you. Something interesting I find in the code is that seismic has a 0.7 ASD multiplier while wind has a 0.6 ASD multiplier. This creates a situation where, depending on design methodology and materials, wind can control LRFD design while seismic controls ASD design. I've never seen this personally, but have any of you experienced this? If so, how did you handle it? The conservative assumption is to check both, and detail accordingly, but it just seems odd to me since these two load cases don't "line up."
 I suspect the reasons they don't line up is bc of how the factors on the other load cases (on the demand side of the equation) in that combination either exacerbate or mitagate that lateral load effect, in that particular combination.  Combined with how the reductions on the strength side / allowable stress side limit the capacity in tandem with the demand side factors. 

I know there is a good discussion in Salmon and Johnson on when a particular method is more advantageous depending on your dead to live load ratios.  But personally Iwouldn't get too caught up in the apples vs oranges comparisons between the methodalogical procedures because at the end of the day everything is an approximation of a prediction based on a best guess return period, then formulated empirically, interpreted by an engineer and applied using engineering judgment.  There is so much fuzz built into the load formulation and design process that I wouldn't really worry if a controlling LRFD combination isn't congruent with it's ASD counterpart.

I have to believe that if there was a chance that a particular method would 'mis diagnose' the controlling lateral load effect such that there are detrimental design consequences then it would have been flushed out.  

Just my two cents. 

 
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But personally Iwouldn't get too caught up in the apples vs oranges comparisons between the methodalogical procedures because at the end of the day everything is an approximation of a prediction based on a best guess return period, then formulated empirically, interpreted by an engineer and applied using engineering judgment.
Reminds me of the old quote -

"Structural Engineering is the Art of molding materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot precisely analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the community at large has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance."

 
Reminds me of the old quote -

"Structural Engineering is the Art of molding materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot precisely analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the community at large has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance."
While I understand the joke and agree that it's oddly funny and somewhat true, I feel this downplays the significant amount of intellect and mathematical genius that goes into engineering theory and practice. If we were to take a relationship of physical accuracy of our models and graph it against the preciseness of material testing, I suspect you would see an asymptotic relationship between how close the calculations get with reality. Dealing with all materials, we have to use statistical averages due to manufacturing defects and inherent fluctuations of material strengths and stiffness, however, the industry balances around a profitable equilibrium in which engineers expect and design to a reasonably small material property standard deviation that manufacturers can consistently reproduce. Of course this all depends on the rigor of your analysis, while Bernoulli will get you close, Timoshenko will get you closer, and finite element analysis would be the gold standard. Maybe there will be a paper published studying FEM elements with material properties varying over expected statistical deviations throughout a system. I would guess the smaller you made your elements, the more accurately you would reflect reality (again, an asymptotic relationship).  Unfortunately, my explanation won't fit on a t-shirt and even if it did, I suppose you could expect comments from the layperson along the lines of the movie "Idiocracy."

I'm reminded of when my wife was in college getting her MBA. We were having a conversation with someone about her career, with a blank stare the individual looked back at us and said "Is an MBA a nurse or something?"

 
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