The question I had about my sophomore year of college was what is the FE exam? Everyone keeps talking about it and I have no idea what it is.
The Fundamentals of Engineering Exam (FE exam) is an exam that some engineering students choose to take during their final year of college. This exam, if passed, allows a student to become an Engineer-In-Training (EIT) and is the beginning of their path towards becoming a Professional Engineer (PE). After completing four years of professional engineering work experience (or less if you obtain a Masters or PhD) under a licensed PE, an EIT can then sit for the PE exam and become a PE, if they pass the PE exam. Becoming an EIT or PE is not required for all types of engineering or engineering positions, but can provided added benefits.
The FE and PE exams are offered in a variety of disciplines of engineering, which allow students within a particular discipline of engineering to take the exam most similar to their coursework background. For example, student in mechanical engineering take the mechanical engineering FE exam where as a student in environmental engineering would take the environmental FE exam. Additionally, there is an FE exam other disciplines. It doesn't matter which FE exam a student chooses to take, as they all provided the same title of EIT.
The FE exam is a 6 hours computer-based exam covering topics ranging from mathematics, probability and statistics, ethics, and engineering economics, just to name a few. The subject matter varies from exam to exam depending on which exam you take. For example, the civil exam has additional sections on structural analysis and the industrial exam has a systems engineering section. Almost all of the sections covered on a particular discipline exam will be covered in the courses taken for the major associated with that exam. In other words, the electrical engineering major at Purdue will cover the majority of material covered on the electrical and computer engineering FE exam.
Purdue engineers have exceptionally high pass rates associated with the FE exam compared to the national pass rate. During the 2013-2014 school year, 392 Purdue students took the FE exam and 93.3% of those students passed the exam compared to the national pass rate of 77.1%.
On reading this post, one might wonder why start thinking about the FE exam now? You haven't even started taking college classes yet. I believe that this is important because as I'm studying for the FE exam myself, I'm looking back thinking I wish I would have saved my calculus notes from first semester. Also, it's never too early to start thinking about where your future career path might take you. Thinking ahead will allow you to think about whether or not the FE is something that you should look into.
Want more information on the FE exam? Check out the following resources:
http://ncees.org/exams/fe-exam/
http://ncees.org/exams/fe-exam/
0 Comments