How Can You Make PE Exam Prep Fun and Enjoy The Ride?
by Jeff Setzer, PE – Founder of Engineering Design Resources
Image Credit: ©acme www.fotosearch.com
While I was preparing for my first attempt at the PE Exam, I did the usual things:
- Took a Review Course from a local university.
- Bought (and actually opened) a Review Manual and the associated Review Problems.
- Looked through a couple of Practice Exams.
- And…I did not Make PE Exam Prep Fun.
I didn’t pass the exam!
Already having a PE License in Texas, which fortunately was where the majority of my projects were, I didn’t concern myself with taking the exam again. But then I moved … to another state.
My PE License was not recognized outside the State of Texas.
I had a problem.
Having been out of college for 14 years, I had already not passed the exam, and quite frankly, I was not interested in relearning engineering information that I hadn’t used in those 14 years – with the possibility of not passing again.
What to do? … What to do?
Well, skipping the narrative on all the pros/cons spreadsheets, the extrapolations, the what-if scenarios, etc., I decided to buckle down, put in the effort, and try again.
This time it worked.
How did I do it?
I was able to Make PE Exam Prep Fun!
I was able to Make PE Exam Prep Fun by:
- Downloading the exam outline from NCEES.org.
- Gathering, sorting, and reorganizing all the resources I had accumulated over my 14 year career.
- Searching for additional resources where my information was lacking:
- Internet
- Reference Books
- Textbooks
- Code Books
- Handbooks
- Library
- Finding example and practice questions that directly applied to each of the topics on the exam outline.
- Making up my own practice questions from my resources.
- Keeping a study plan and calendar up-to-date.
- Taking several sample exams to see where I needed additional focus and preparation.
- Constantly telling myself that I would be successful – and, honestly, I didn’t want to prepare for and take the exam again.
By making it a puzzle to be solved, a game to be played, an adventure to be lived, I was able to make PE Exam Prep fun! I realized that I had become an engineer because I enjoyed solving problems and finding answers.
After I successfully passed the PE Exam (and after being an engineer for 24 years), I decided to put my exam preparation methods to good use benefiting as many others as I could. Thus was born
EngineeringDesignResources.com
I now have the privilege everyday to talk with and assist people from all over the world as they prepare to take their PE Exam. The tasks that I constantly encourage them to pursue are:
- Build a comprehensive and usable Test-Prep Resource Library©*
- Work through as many sample problems as you can.
- Get help on your weaker topics.
- And have fun during the process. If it’s not fun, why are you pursuing it?
Make PE Exam Prep Fun
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