Passing the pe exam

PE Civil Exam Depth: Geotechnical

March 29, 2022 by Anthony Fasano, P.E. Leave a Comment

Are you struggling to decide what depth exam you should take for your Civil PE Exam? Where do you start when trying to figure this out? Passing the PE exam is the last milestone in the journey towards your professional engineering license, so you must make the right decision.

In the next 5 articles, we will cover each of these Civil PE depth exams in detail, outline which topics show up on each exam, what the pass rates are for each topic, and provide some valuable information that will help you in your decision.

Let’s Look at the PE Civil: Geotechnical Depth Section of the PE Exam:

There are five different areas that you can choose from when taking the PE Civil exam which are:

PE Civil: Geotechnical
PE Civil: Construction
PE Civil: Structural
PE Civil: Transportation
PE Civil: Water Resources & Environmental

Remember that the PE Civil exam is a breadth and depth examination. The breadth items (typically known as the morning section) cover topics from all areas of civil engineering. However, the depth items (also known as the afternoon section) focus more closely on a single area of practice, like Geotechnical Engineering.

What Is Geotechnical Engineering?

How to Get Your PE License in Another State

May 26, 2021 by Anthony Fasano, P.E. Leave a Comment

As a licensed professional engineer, there are certain situations where you may need to obtain a PE license in another state. In this article (and video above), I talk about if, and how, you can get licensed in states other than the one where you passed the PE exam.

You worked hard and passed the PE exam, and now, you want plan to use it in states other than the one in which you took the exam. Can you receive permission to do so? The answer is yes you can, but unfortunately, earning a professional engineering license in one state does not automatically make you eligible to obtain the license in other states.

Why You Would Need To Become Licensed in Other States?

How to Answer Difficult PE Questions During the Exam

January 20, 2021 by Anthony Fasano, P.E. Leave a Comment

The biggest challenge in passing the PE exam for most people is not having enough time to answer difficult PE questions. You can be proficient in every technical concept on the exam, but if you’re not fast enough, you may not answer enough questions to pass the PE exam. The best possible way to feel less anxious about the PE exam is to be prepared.

My wife is a licensed professional engineer, and she struggled with this. She was really good at the technical concepts, and could answer any question if she had unlimited time, but when she got into a pressure type exam situation with limited time, she really struggled. So I helped her to create a process for tackling the exam questions with a focus on time management and I want to share that process with you in this video.

With regard to tackling difficult PE questions, I have to acknowledge that some of the PE exams, depending on discipline, have already gone to the CBT or computer based testing format. And the biggest change with CBT is that you cannot bring in personal reference materials, you can only use the digital handbook that NCEES provides. So the approach in answering questions may be different depending on whether or not your test is computer based. However, if your exam is CBT, it should go without saying that you must know the NCEES reference handbook inside-out.

Passing the pe exam

Let’s Look at the PE Civil: Geotechnical Depth Section of the PE Exam:

What Is Geotechnical Engineering?

Why You Would Need To Become Licensed in Other States?

How To Approach Exam Problems From Both a CBT and Non-CBT Perspective?