The Esoteric Engineer

Well, this is it. In a little over 3 weeks, I will be taking the Principles and Practice of Engineering (P.E.) exam. I've studied since April for this, and I am excited to see how much it paid off. I will be following up later with a post about how I studied, what resources I used, and what the exam itself was like. Stay tuned, and wish me luck. Cheers, -EE

If you are about to graduate college, or you have recently graduated, and are getting ready to enter the engineering workforce, I first of all want to congratulate you, and second I want to ask you to be prepared for your world to be turned upside down. Right about now, you are probably feeling like you're on top of the world, right? You've studied for 4 or more years, you've amassed a huge wealth of knowledge, you can solve problems and take tests like a champ, and you've got a piece of paper with your name and degree on it to prove it. So you're ready for the real world, right? Wrong. You are currently standing on what I like to call the "knowledge cliff." Allow me to illustrate what I mean using a handy dandy paint graph: Note that I'm not the first one to think of this, but I couldn't find the original source, so I drew my own. Anyway, I feel the diagram is self-explanatory, but just in case: what you think you know after colleg...

If you are like me, you probably have a career or life goal of some sort, and you also probably want to be recognized as a leader in your field. For me, these requirements are both met by pursuing my Professional Engineering (P.E.) license. In short, the P.E. license is a symbol of a person who is primarily: 1) recognized in their field, and 2) committed to public safety. When a P.E. "stamps" a design, it means that they take responsibility for the design in question, and certify that it is safe for use in the public context and will perform as expected and demonstrated. In the US, each state has different requirements for licensure, but in general, the minimum requirements for being licensed as a P.E. are as follows: Take and pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, Gain engineering experience under a P.E. (after college), and Take and pass the Principles and Practice of Engineering (PE) exam. The above description was taken from the National Society of Prof...

Thank you for visiting my blog about my engineering experiences. This blog was created so I could tell others what I wish I would have been told through my experiences working in the fields that I do. I'll start with a little bit of info about myself. I am currently a registered Engineer-In-Training in the USA. Since 2013, I have worked for a small engineering firm which puts me in a lot of unique and challenging scenarios every day. I graduated from a private university with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, with electives in Electronics, Computer Systems, Optics, Wireless Communication Systems, and Control Systems design. My first task was in software development (which I still actively do on a regular basis), and I gradually took on software engineering duties, as well as control systems and electrical engineering duties. In my college days, I interned at a public organization performing maintenance engineering tasks for a power generation plant. Language wa...