- Treat it like a full-time job. You’re only working two jobs for four months, so it can’t be that bad.
- Read the website: https://ncees.org/
Find your syllabus, pass rates, state where you’ll take your exam, and make note of any rules you’ll have to follow. This website answers any question you may have about the exam. Definitely get the syllabus from this website.
Make an account: https://account.ncees.org/login
If your test is CBT, you’ll get an electronic handbook. Once you make an account, you can download it from your dashboard. Under every category, it’ll say “Republished with permission of John Doe Publishing… etc”. Believe it or not, these references exist in real life. Go out and buy those textbooks. If they got permission to use those diagrams on their handbook, they will also get permission to use textbook questions from these publishers.
3. Once a week, study for 8 hours straight, preferably on a Saturday. The exam is 8 hours long, so you have to have an 8 hour attention span. Just don’t make this the only time you study.
4. Buy textbooks. If you’re looking for cheap, buy an earlier edition. Ebay and Amazon are my go-to websites for buying online. Before you buy anything, scroll down to the reviews and filter by one star reviews. If you don’t like what you’re seeing, don’t buy it. If this article had a sponsor, I would also list them here and tell you to buy it while you’re buying your engineering textbook, but I don’t. (buy Bounty products on Amazon, I plan on being sponsored by both for some extra cash…)
5. Social media: Even though you’re supposed to ditch your friends to study, you can still use social media. Check Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Discord, and Engineer Boards to see if anyone illegally uploaded resources for free downloading.
Google search terms: You don’t need an account. This website is free and easy to use. You don’t need an account to use it.
PE (discipline)
PE (discipline) review
PE (discipline) practice questions
PE (discipline) reddit
PE (discipline) linkedin
LinkedIn and Facebook: Type in your PE exam in the search bar and see what pops up. Join every relevant group. You’ll need an account to do this.
YouTube search terms: Take every line item from your syllabus and append “PE (discipline)” to the end of it and see what pops up. If the results are unsatisfactory, take off “PE (discipline)” since they’re usually the same concepts anyways. No account needed.
Reddit: You don’t need an account here. There’s a search bar on the top, or you can use this link to help you:
Discord: This one’s hard to use. You need an account. Join this group: https://discord.gg/stemnetwork
Engineer Boards: People ask questions here all the time. Just read through them and see what other people posted. You don’t need an account to read stuff here, although if you want to download any files, you’ll need an account.
6. Local external networking groups: Some of these guys may just give you their resources for free, or cheap. You can also ask your fellow HDR employees
Stay away from TikTok.
7. Do lots of practice problems. You’re not being tested on the 33rd word on page 518. Find them on those social media places.
8. Microsoft Excel: If your discipline has lots of calculations, this advice is for you. For every practice problem you come across, model them on Excel. Then, change the given numbers. Solve the new question with your replaced numbers, then compare them to what Excel gives you. You’ll get more practice this way, and the answer
9. There’s only one exam, and you only need to pass it once. So study for one exam, the PE Exam. Don’t study for a class, don’t study quantum physics, and don’t study how to use a ruler. Study how to pass the exam. All it takes is one pass on the PE Exam to get your PE license.
10. Don’t focus on what other people did to pass. Your success should come from yourself. If you just copied other people, then everyone would be successful, and I can’t let that happen. That being said, I just invalidated everything I listed out. This has been fun, thanks for reading!
Source: pulled common sense out of my hat