Engineers Forum » Take the FE Exam (formerly EIT Exam) Soon After Graduation

[Grant]

The first step to become a professional engineer is to pass the FE exam. The FE exam was formerly called the EIT exam or E.I.T. exam which stood for Engineer-in-Training. The FE exam is administered by the NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying).
http://www.ncees.org

The exam covers the fundamentals of engineering. It is a one day test consisting of two parts with each part lasting 4 hours. The test covers a broad range of engineering material. It makes a lot of sense to take the exam right after college since that is when you are most likely to be a well oiled engineering problem solving machine with the endurance to sit down and take an 8 hour exam in one day. Don’t put it off because it gets more and more difficult as the years pass and memory fades.

Working as an engineer is very different from being a student. As an engineer you tend to specialize in certain areas and gain in depth knowledge of what you work with on a day to day basis. However, you will tend to forget fundamental problem solving skills in many areas of engineering because you don’t use them every day. For example if you work as a structural engineer for a few years after college then you will have no problem with any beam questions on the FE exam. However, a basic problem involving the Bernoulli equation dealing with some simple flow in a pipe could get you banging yourself over the head because you remember how easily you used to be able to solve such a problem.

Your test taking stamina will also fade while working as an engineer. Filling in little bubbles with a number 2 pencil for hours on end without getting up for a cup of coffee may seem like a nightmare. Do it now while you are a trained test taking machine. Don’t delay! take the FE exam after college!