Passed PE Civil Structural - 1st attempt
Got an early gift for the holidays, passed the structural exam with self-study only. I should mention that my job is industrial steel and concrete building design.
I started by downloading the NCEES practice exam back around summer 2023, but I didn’t really look at it for months. Then in February 2024 I learned that the breadth portion was going away and I tried to scramble to study and take the exam before the change. Obviously this wasn’t a good plan. I bit the bullet and rescheduled for December, and I accepted the fact that I’d have no breadth portion. I really didn’t mind, I have no reason to know about vertical curves or laminar flow, and focusing on structures would just help me know my stuff.
I put off studying a while longer because it always felt so far away. Around October I really started in earnest, and I was stressed and disappointed in myself for waiting so long. I bought a few study books online and got to work. As I could I would study 1-3 hours on weekdays and 2-4 hours on weekends. I was not consistent with this, I put more time in when I could but I often missed days. Because I felt underprepared, I studied up to the night before the exam. I didn’t work long problems the night before, but I reviewed almost every problem I’d done and followed along where I’d referenced in the code.
My takeaways and advice would be: - I wouldn’t start with the NCEES practice exam again. Anything set up as a practice exam I would save and take (at least portions of it) under simulated test conditions - When working practice problems, I worked them very slowly and deliberately. I would do my best to treat it as a design assignment for work and make sure I’m writing down specific code references, I’m checking any code max/mins, etc. I think the time for working quickly would be when simulating testing (which I never got around to). - If you have them, dig out college textbooks or homework to reference some of the fundamentals. I referenced my reinforced concrete, steel design, and mechanics of materials work multiple times. A couple nights I worked for 2-3 hours and finished 2 problems - Don’t check solutions until you have no clue how to proceed. If my answer didn’t match any options, digging through my work to find the mistake was really valuable, even if I ultimately had to check the solution. - If you get a problem wrong, rework it even if you’ve looked at the whole solution and know the mistake. The process of reworking everything helps reinforce the code references. - Start studying early and in small, consistent sessions. Don’t put it off like I did.
Resources I used are: - “The Essential Guide to Passing the Structural Civil PE Exam” (3rd ed) by Jacob Petro. These problems were difficult. They’re doable, but they took time and I made several mistakes. These are great, in-depth problems, but start early. - “Civil PE Exam Structural Practice Exams” by David Gruttadauria. This was much more similar to exam difficulty. You can work them in 6 minutes, but I think they’re more beneficial to take your time and really digest the solutions / code references. - “Civil Practice Exam: Structural Depth Version A” by PE Prepared. I never got around to this, I was saving it to take a simulated exam. - NCEES practice exam. It was before the April format change, depth problems were pretty representative, maybe a little easier than the exam.
Sorry for the long write up, hopefully someone can get something out of it. Good luck, stick with it!
Got an early gift for the holidays, passed the structural exam with self-study only. I should mention that my job is industrial steel and concrete building design.
I started by downloading the NCEES practice exam back around summer 2023, but I didn’t really look at it for months. Then in February 2024 I learned that the breadth portion was going away and I tried to scramble to study and take the exam before the change. Obviously this wasn’t a good plan. I bit the bullet and rescheduled for December, and I accepted the fact that I’d have no breadth portion. I really didn’t mind, I have no reason to know about vertical curves or laminar flow, and focusing on structures would just help me know my stuff.
I put off studying a while longer because it always felt so far away. Around October I really started in earnest, and I was stressed and disappointed in myself for waiting so long. I bought a few study books online and got to work. As I could I would study 1-3 hours on weekdays and 2-4 hours on weekends. I was not consistent with this, I put more time in when I could but I often missed days. Because I felt underprepared, I studied up to the night before the exam. I didn’t work long problems the night before, but I reviewed almost every problem I’d done and followed along where I’d referenced in the code.
My takeaways and advice would be: - I wouldn’t start with the NCEES practice exam again. Anything set up as a practice exam I would save and take (at least portions of it) under simulated test conditions - When working practice problems, I worked them very slowly and deliberately. I would do my best to treat it as a design assignment for work and make sure I’m writing down specific code references, I’m checking any code max/mins, etc. I think the time for working quickly would be when simulating testing (which I never got around to). - If you have them, dig out college textbooks or homework to reference some of the fundamentals. I referenced my reinforced concrete, steel design, and mechanics of materials work multiple times. A couple nights I worked for 2-3 hours and finished 2 problems - Don’t check solutions until you have no clue how to proceed. If my answer didn’t match any options, digging through my work to find the mistake was really valuable, even if I ultimately had to check the solution. - If you get a problem wrong, rework it even if you’ve looked at the whole solution and know the mistake. The process of reworking everything helps reinforce the code references. - Start studying early and in small, consistent sessions. Don’t put it off like I did.
Resources I used are: - “The Essential Guide to Passing the Structural Civil PE Exam” (3rd ed) by Jacob Petro. These problems were difficult. They’re doable, but they took time and I made several mistakes. These are great, in-depth problems, but start early. - “Civil PE Exam Structural Practice Exams” by David Gruttadauria. This was much more similar to exam difficulty. You can work them in 6 minutes, but I think they’re more beneficial to take your time and really digest the solutions / code references. - “Civil Practice Exam: Structural Depth Version A” by PE Prepared. I never got around to this, I was saving it to take a simulated exam. - NCEES practice exam. It was before the April format change, depth problems were pretty representative, maybe a little easier than the exam.
Sorry for the long write up, hopefully someone can get something out of it. Good luck, stick with it!