One of the most common ways to continue to be a smart firm is to continuously learn; earning a professional license is a direct reflection of that. Years of academic + practical study along with passing grueling exams earns an engineer the respect + responsibility to make decisions not just for themself + our firm, but for the safety of our communities. A professional license is a huge milestone in a career and deserves hearty congratulations.

John Baucco

John Baucco, PE

New PE, Ohio | Project Engineer | Columbus, Ohio

My advice would be to make a study calendar and stick to it as best as you can. Indicate what subject you will study on each day, and how long you plan to study. I typically did 1-2 hours on weekdays, and 4 hours on weekend days. Plan to wrap up all your subject reviews with 3-4 weeks remaining, then take a practice exam in an actual test setting (meaning two 8 hour days, back-to-back). Review your practice exam, and use the remaining weeks to study subjects you did not perform well on. Having a significant other at home to take over your cooking + cleaning duties is also a huge help (thank you to my wife).

Chris Hahnel

Chris Hahnel, PE

New PE, Ohio | Project Manager | Cincinnati, Ohio

Schedule time to study. I set small achievable markers + due dates such as finishing chapters or certain topics in order to stay on track. If you don’t schedule time and plan your home + work schedules around it, it will continue to be pushed off.

I recommend starting with topics you haven’t used since school. Highlight information that is very specific and may need to be quickly found, and absolutely add tabs to your books if there aren’t already. Make sure you review practice tests + recommended reference material. I knew of some of my colleagues who were also studying – we would often run questions by each other, share practice material and sometimes keep each other accountable on studying.

Don’t forget to celebrate after you’re alerted that you passed – I recommend happy hour!

Jason Hubbell

Jason Hubbell, PE

New PE, Ohio | Design Engineer | Cincinnati, Ohio

An important test taking skill is being able to turn to the right page of your reference material quickly. To that end, buy or borrow a hard (not digital) copy of a Civil Engineering PE reference manual (Michael R. Lindeburg) early, and include it in your studies/preparations from the very beginning. If it doesn’t have them already, add tabs with labels to further increase your speed of turning to the correct page. Set a schedule/rhythm of studying each week and stick to it. Use example problems and full length example tests.

Matt Kozma

Matt Kozma, PE

New PE,  Ohio | Project Manager | Cincinnati, Ohio

Practice, practice, practice!

A conventional belief is that the exam is unique from year to year and that you can’t possibly practice for the eventuality that a question will be on your exam, but this is quite untrue. Start studying the material by (and mainly focus your time on) solving sample exam type questions over + over until you can quickly answer most of them without looking up the equation in your reference books. Don’t delay solving problems to read through the all the reference books or attend a training course. In the contrary, squeeze in a six minute question or two first thing in the morning before work, during your lunch break or after diner. You’ll never be prepared for all the questions on the exam; however, you’ll have more time to answer the questions you didn’t anticipate if you practiced answering the easy ones quickly. In fact, you can even bring the solutions you’ve practiced with you and reference them during the exam.

Don’t wait until the last few weeks to run through the NCEES practice exam. You can use the questions in this practice exam to narrow down the chapters you should read through in the PPI reference manual or additional sample exam type questions you wish to practice. The reference manual covers the material for more than one exam. You don’t need to memorize the entire book, just familiarize yourself with + tab the relevant chapters that apply to your specific exam.

Phil Niekamp

Phil Niekamp, PE

New PE, Ohio | Project Manager | Cincinnati, Ohio

I recommend creating a study plan by setting time aside on a regular basis to study; I needed a few days a week for about three or so months for the PE. The preparation that helped the most was doing as many practice problems as I could find. By doing the practice problems you will, along the way, find which sections need tabbed and which books or resources will be the most useful. Definitely celebrate after passing – do something that you haven’t done in awhile like a nice meal out as you probably haven’t done much while studying.

Taylor Norman

Taylor Norman, PE, SE

New SE, Arizona | Project Manager | Phoenix, Arizona

The SE test is much more difficult + specific than the PE test, and not just because it’s two days of testing. For the PE test, you can probably study the Civil Engineering Reference Manual by Lindeburg front to back and be mostly fine. For the SE test, you need to work through each of the respective codes + materials one by one and make sure you’re confident enough in your understanding of them to work quickly; the test is as much, if not more, about your ability to recall knowledge quickly as it is about just knowing it in the first place. Because the SE test is two separate days of tests, I would not recommend taking both of them in the same testing cycle unless you are prepared to dedicate a significant amount of time to studying – that way you can focus on one without driving yourself too crazy.

Don’t forget to study and have the relevant AASHTO code on hand – you’ll be asked several multiple choice questions on this code even though we’re unlikely to use it. Ask others in your firm, or acquaintances who have taken it recently, for information + study material. There’s a wealth of information + study material out there and you will certainly find people who can either provide it or point you in the right direction. Big shout out to John Heck, who personally helped me a lot by sharing many study guides for the SE Lateral test that he had. Without them, it would have been much more difficult to pass!

Zac Wilson

Zac Wilson, PE

New PE, Kentucky | Design Engineer | Cincinnati, Ohio

  • Start studying early + leave wiggle room for unknowns that will pop-up
  • Create a study schedule based on how you retain information
  • Buy or borrow CERM and print its index to a separate binder for easy indexing
  • TAB, TAB, TAB – Make sure you have tabs on all your references and know where they are when you need them
  • Run several practice tests as if they were the real exam, going problem-by-problem with six minutes of time; study the solution with each problem and write down the equations or where to find them for tabbing later (this was the most helpful for non-structural questions)
  • Don’t forget to plan how you will take all your materials to the exam site; I bought a rolling crate (others use suitcases, wagons + plastic bins)

Good luck to all pursuing professional licensure!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *