As I mentioned in a previous blog post, knowing your "why" and getting motivated are critical to your success. A lot of people talk about doing something but yet they never take action. Those folks are left with no results; only regret. I believe you're a doer, though, and you're planning to take action. Once you have decided --committed-- to take the engineering exams, you will need to prepare by studying and practicing problem-solving.
The FE and PE exams cover a comprehensive breadth of engineering subject matter. Within this set of subject matter, there are topics you enjoy, and you excel at solving those types of problems because they align with your natural aptitude and/or passion. There are other ares of engineering you dislike, cringe at the thought of, or are not as strong in that space. You will need to boost your focus on the things you aren't great at and don't like doing if you want to pass the tests. You will also need to hone your problem-solving skills to work under pressure with time limits. (I know, you're an engineer, and you already do that. But, we need to further work on those skills).The five-step study strategy strategy I recommend is: 1) Immersion, 2) Filtration, 3) Reinforcement, 4) Practice Problems, 5) Time Trials. If you workout, you might want to do cardio to start the blood flowing, and then lift weights. When you weight lift, you might start with whole body lifts that hit the large muscle groups (like dumbbell squats), then you work down into focus exercises (like leg extensions) to target specific muscles. And, your work out routines may also include coordination drills, timed sprints, jump rope. These things help hone your athletic condition. Exam preparation is similar but on a mental level. You will move from general and holistic to focused pressure points of weakness to convert them into strength. Let's dig into the details:
1. Immersion:
Just like athletic training, this process of preparation for the exams means you have to first "get off the sofa". Get out of the comfort zone and start stretching yourself from your current state of equilibrium. We're going after growth --mental growth. Getting healthy can start with diet and cardio, some activity and quality food. Well, in this situation we need to ramp up brain activity and start feeding it the right diet of engineering info. You may not have studied thermodynamics or dynamics and vibrations in a while. The exam is going to touch upon all subjects and you literally need to immerse yourself back into all the various topics. The study process is like jumping to a higher level valence election shell. After several years of being away from school you will forget some things you had learned in college. You will get into an everyday mode of thinking. We need to reverse the process. Instead of shrinking and forgetting you will refresh and reinvigorate parts of your mind. Get your self into a engineering generalist mindset. Your job may require you to be specialized in one area, but for the PE, you really need to be a generalist with ability to solve problems across a wide breadth of topics. So, start getting in the habit of thumbing through a engineering reference manual, and jogging your memory about principles and formulas. Start getting yourself ramped up because this is the phase at which you're working to get into the habit of studying and focusing on the cross-training you have to do to succeed. I would spend time each evening, even if for just a half hour, perusing engineering text. You can gradually increase the time as you grow your commitment. Remember, you love engineering and that's why you started this in the first place.
2. Filtration:
2. Filtration:
As I said before, there are areas in which you are an expert and you enjoy those topics. But, there are some topics that are included in the test which your college curriculum may not have covered. And, there are topics you just dislike or aren't very good at and those are the ones you'll need to identify and pay extra attention to. Start a notepad or journal. Make a list of the broad subject matter categories. I did this by writing down the name of the chapters of the engineering reference manual. Then, I spent time to review each area. I did a self-assessment by identifying topics in which I was a little weak and annotating them in my note pad. I had ramped-up my immersion and then did some filtration to know where to focus more of my time.
3. Reinforcement:
By this point, you have spend time getting into a "study" habit of reading every night. You've identified some weak spots. Work to improve those weak spots. I spent some additional time with those weak areas by reading and also looking up information in separate sources like my old textbooks or on the Internet. I even made flash cards of key concepts to keep jabbing at the weak spots and ingrain the information in my mind.
By this point, you have spend time getting into a "study" habit of reading every night. You've identified some weak spots. Work to improve those weak spots. I spent some additional time with those weak areas by reading and also looking up information in separate sources like my old textbooks or on the Internet. I even made flash cards of key concepts to keep jabbing at the weak spots and ingrain the information in my mind.
4. Practice Problems:
Now, you need to practice a bunch of problems to see if you can still come up with the right answers (without timing yourself). You're doing great. This stuff all comes back to you. It's sort of like "once and engineer, always an engineer". Those long hours you spent at the engineering school and studying really imprinted on you--permanently. This stuff sticks with you for a long time, but if you don't use it, you sort of lose it and get "rusty". That's why the immersion is important and gets your motor started up. I strongly suggest to get a book of practice problems to work through. I used this to make sure I had the problem-solving method worked out. I also would categorize the problem type, assess my weak spots, and repeat step #3 - Reinforcement - by reviewing the areas of weakness until I achieved a better mastery of the subject.
Now, you need to practice a bunch of problems to see if you can still come up with the right answers (without timing yourself). You're doing great. This stuff all comes back to you. It's sort of like "once and engineer, always an engineer". Those long hours you spent at the engineering school and studying really imprinted on you--permanently. This stuff sticks with you for a long time, but if you don't use it, you sort of lose it and get "rusty". That's why the immersion is important and gets your motor started up. I strongly suggest to get a book of practice problems to work through. I used this to make sure I had the problem-solving method worked out. I also would categorize the problem type, assess my weak spots, and repeat step #3 - Reinforcement - by reviewing the areas of weakness until I achieved a better mastery of the subject.
5.Time Trials:
The test is a timed test. You wont have unlimited time to solve every problem. You'll have about 5 or 6 minutes to solve each problem. An important step is to practice working problems with a time pressure. I recommend to purchase a practice exam, and work it while timing yourself. Apply the time pressure. Work to speed your problem solving time to par. Then, grade the test. Identify the problems you failed and categorize them by subject. Tally results. You will see what areas you still have weakness. Wash and repeat--continue by repeating Step 3, 4, 5 until you're confident to test. For example, through the studying process I discovered that I needed to understand how to solve a problem involving the calculation of the expected lifespan of a ball bearing. I also had some issues with three-phase electrical motors. For those areas, I found separate reference books to build up my strength, and I also brought those books to the test. In total, I only had about four books with me - my favorite thermodynamics book by Moran and Shapiro (for good charts), my MERM by Lindeburg (for overall reference), Ugly's electrical reference pocketbook (for the three-phase motor problems), and Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design (for ball-bearing problems). FYI - I strongly recommend to put a tab to mark key index pages, and key formula pages. Time is of the essence when you're testing and you don't want to waste it searching for information in books.
The test is a timed test. You wont have unlimited time to solve every problem. You'll have about 5 or 6 minutes to solve each problem. An important step is to practice working problems with a time pressure. I recommend to purchase a practice exam, and work it while timing yourself. Apply the time pressure. Work to speed your problem solving time to par. Then, grade the test. Identify the problems you failed and categorize them by subject. Tally results. You will see what areas you still have weakness. Wash and repeat--continue by repeating Step 3, 4, 5 until you're confident to test. For example, through the studying process I discovered that I needed to understand how to solve a problem involving the calculation of the expected lifespan of a ball bearing. I also had some issues with three-phase electrical motors. For those areas, I found separate reference books to build up my strength, and I also brought those books to the test. In total, I only had about four books with me - my favorite thermodynamics book by Moran and Shapiro (for good charts), my MERM by Lindeburg (for overall reference), Ugly's electrical reference pocketbook (for the three-phase motor problems), and Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design (for ball-bearing problems). FYI - I strongly recommend to put a tab to mark key index pages, and key formula pages. Time is of the essence when you're testing and you don't want to waste it searching for information in books.
We will talk more about problem solving strategy and test day strategies in a future post. Good luck. Let me know how you're doing with your PE efforts! Don't forget to subscribe to this blog and share with anyone you might know who is interested in the PE license.
Best Regards,
Andrew Rummer, BSME, MBA, P.E.
Copyright Andrew M Rummer 2017. All Rights Reserved.
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