<p>Thanks for all the input so far. What is a PE? Salary is not a big concern of mine either. If I wanted to move up in management later in my life is one or the other easier?</p>
<p>I agree RacinReaver for buildings with a more utilitarian purpose. You don't really care about aesthetics in those cases; it's efficiency that matters.</p>
<p>PE stands for Professional Engineer. It's a license that allows you to practice engineering in projects involving public infrastructure. At the end of college, you take an 8-hour Fundamentals of Engineering exam. After 4 years of experience (depends on state, and other qualifications), you can sit for the PE exam.</p>
<p>^ Weird how over here you don't need to take a FE by the time you do graduate. It's not even a requirement.</p>
<p>It's not a requirement anywhere to take it by the time you graduate. It just makes more sense if there's a possibility of you going for a PE. Everything's fresh in your heads.</p>
<p>I think in some states, you only start accruing the 4 years experience after you pass your PE. In other states, you may even be able to take both on the same weekend.</p>
<p>i may be wrong but if you go to an ABET-accredited school don't you only need 2 years as an EIT before you can try for your PE?</p>
<p>Laws vary by state. In New York, it's 4.</p>
<p>In California, it's one, post-masters, but the test is different and takes two days instead of one. It varies really wildly.</p>
<p>
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It's not a requirement anywhere to take it by the time you graduate.
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Well, yes and no. The state boards don't require engineering students to take or pass the FE exam before graduation. </p>
<p>However, many engineering schools do require their students to take the FE exam before they graduate, even though it's not required by state law. This is because the schools use it as an "assessment exam", so that they can get data to evaluate the strengths or weaknesses of their program. Typically it is not necessary to actually pass the exam, just to take it.</p>
<p>But I understand that there are some schools that do use the FE exam as a true "exit exam" -- you are required to take and pass the exam before they let you graduate. For example, the University of Texas at Tyler says:</a>
[quote]
To graduate with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering a student must satisfy the following: ...</p>
<p>...pass the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Fundamentals of Engineering examination.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In CA per May 2008, you can take PE test after your ABET BS. However, you still have to take EIT and work 2 years before granted the license.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Board voted unanimously today to move to allow candidates to take their Professional Engineering and Professional Land Surveying examinations any time after they have graduated. This will allow engineers to become licensed faster. Currently, candidates for licensure may only take the exam two years after graduating from their program, adding time to the licensure process.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Now, someone was saying Civil field is not saturated? It will be pretty soon...</p>
<p>
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Now, someone was saying Civil field is not saturated? It will be pretty soon...
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</p>
<p>It's not, and it isn't going to be. You don't know enough when you graduate to be able to pass the PE exam, particularly in California. Having done civil engineering in California as an EIT, I can tell you right now that this changes nothing.</p>
<p>Two years isn't much. Assuming the average career lasts 40 years and that you don't learn anything new with more experience, we will have an increase by 2/40ths. That's about 5%. I don't think that's noteworthy, especially since you need experience to learn a lot of the things for the PE exam. </p>
<p>Also, the number of people in the civil engineering field will not change because of this. The only change is the ratio of PE's to EIT's will increase slightly.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Now, someone was saying Civil field is not saturated? It will be pretty soon...
[/quote]
I agree with the previous posters that the effects of his change will be trivial. Fundamentally, it doesn't alter any of the requirements for PE licensure in California; it just gives PE candidates more flexibility about the sequence in which they are completed.</p>
<p>Under the old policy, you had to first complete the experience requirement, then address the PE exam requirement. The PE exam is only offered every six months, and then takes about three months to grade. So it took up to 9 additional months to complete the exam requirement after fulfilling the experience requirement -- assuming you took the exam at the first possible opportunity and passed on the first try.</p>
<p>Now, you will be able to address the exam requirement at the same time that you are fulfilling the experience requirement. So theoretically, you could become a PE as soon as the experience requirement was completed, which would be a time savings of up to 9 months over the old system.</p>
<p>But again, that's assuming that you took the PE exam at the first possible opportunity, and passed on the first try (which is rather difficult in California, where there are three Civil PE exams). In practice, I just don't think that very many people do it this way.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Under the old policy, you had to first complete the experience requirement, then address the PE exam requirement. ... Now, you will be able to address the exam requirement at the same time that you are fulfilling the experience requirement.
[/quote]
The most significant advantage that I see to the new policy is that it gives you more flexibility to address the California Special Civil Seismic Exam. I found this to be the most difficult part of the licensing process in California.</p>
<p>The seismic exam is based on the California Building Code. But the building code is subject to major revision every 3 years, and so the seismic exam regularly changes as well. All available references and study guides for this difficult exam become totally obsolete with each revision.</p>
<p>If a major revision to the seismic exam was pending while you were fulfilling the experience requirement, then you might have a strong incentive to take the seismic exam "early", while it still referenced current codes.</p>