<p>Yesterday, I was talking to the Coordinator for Engineering Recruitment and Retention at my school, who was filling in for the now retired civil engineering advisor. He took a look at my record and then he asked me where I saw myself after graduation, especially since I already had 190 credit hours. I told him that I didn't know. I then told him that I had been interested in structural health monitoring, and then a great thing happened. He told me that a professor in the civil engineering department had been hired a year ago who was interested in that, more specifically structural control via neural networks. He then told me that I needed to:</p>
<p>1.) graduate engineering as soon as possible
2.) go to my school's graduate program for civil engineering, with this professor as my advisor
3.) get my engineering license</p>
<p>Any advice on how to proceed? aibarr, I'd love to hear from you about this. Thanks!</p>
<p>You have to take the "Fundamentals of Engineering" exam your senior year, and then you have a mandatory 4-year experience timespan after which, assuming you have the three requisite professional recommendations, you can take the PE licensing exam. Some states allow shortcuts where a graduate degree can be subbed for one year of experience, but in general, you can't just "go get" a PE license in a short timeframe.</p>
<p>Sounds like a great suggestion! Get in touch with that professor ASAP, cite the Coordinator as having referred you to him, and start establishing a relationship with your new advisor. Let him know you're really interested in structural health monitoring, and see if there's a project you can start in on right now while you're finishing up your undergrad requirements. Free research work's always a nice thing for a professor to squeeze out of an undergraduate, and in this case, it'd be mutually beneficial, if you've got the time and resources to be able to do that.</p>
<p>OH_DAD, I think that the whole "get an engineering license" was an eventuality, and wasn't included in the "as soon as possible" part of things... but yeah, it'll take a little while to get your engineering license.</p>
<p>Very cool! Congrats! It's nice when the stars align and things work out so nicely. =)</p>