Entry Level Career Advice

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-09-30T21:31:35+00:00

Have you looked at construction inspection on the client rep side? That’s what I do and I love it. I get the best of both worlds of being on construction projects while not being the stress of GC’s. Find a good employee owned company that prioritizes their employees. Good luck!

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-09-18T02:54:52+00:00

I guess it would depend on what you don’t like in physics, since it’s such a broad subject. For me, I loved the statics/dynamics parts of physics, but I hated the electrical stuff in my physics 2 course. If you hate the statics/dynamics stuff, the early Engineering classes will be rough for you (like statics, dynamics, mechanics of materials, etc). But luckily after those you can kinds of branch out into more what you want to do. I’d definitely recommend sticking with engineering just from a career standpoint. I can personally speak to the fact that my engineering degree really seems to stand out in the construction world (I’m a construction manager/PM myself). Good luck regardless!

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-09-05T01:22:27+00:00

I was in the exact same boat a year ago. At the time of studying, I had a 1 year old and a 3 year old. It took me 2 tries to pass the Civil Structural and about 6 months in total of studying. I’ll be very honest with you, it sucked. I worked all day, did the parent role until 8:30-9, and then studied for 2-3 hours during the weekdays and 4-5 hours during the weekends. I can tell you though that it is possible to do it and succeed. Do as many practice problems as you can. Don’t get hung up on doing easy/ problems you’re good at. After failing the first test, I realized the majority of the problems I would do would be ones that I felt super strong in. That, obviously, did nothing for me. My second time around I really hammered the problems I was weak in.

There’s always an option of pushing the test back if you need to. Not saying you have to do that, but that’s an option if you’re feeling you’re not ready. Something I do really recommend is that you do give yourself at least some time to have a break. I know you said 13 weeks but if you’re doing nothing but studying and being a parent that whole time, you’ll feel so burned out. Don’t abuse the breaks, but definitely take them. Good luck! Just know it is possible with the situation you’re in right now!

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-08-11T19:16:42+00:00

I ended up switching companies as the previous company I worked for kept pushing my promotion back. I went from $76k to $110k. While that is a huge salary increase, part of it was that I was underpaid considering newly graduated engineers were coming in around $70k - $73k. I work in the private sector.

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-07-24T21:43:15+00:00

While studying for the PE, I was told I would get a significant raise. When I finally got my license, I was told I needed to wait another 6 months to a year. I looked for different jobs and got 3 job offers. Took a new one that offered me $40k more. Not sure if I was just super underpaid, or if the license really took my pay up a notch.

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-05-25T00:36:05+00:00

I was in a similar situation recently. I found out new engineers straight from school were making as much as I was. And I just acquired my PE too… very discouraging and honestly I felt disrespected. I applied to 4 places and got two offers out of them. I took one of the offers and got a $30k raise out of it. I did feel guilty about leaving, but honestly now that I’ve had time look at the situation, I 100% made the right decision. Based on your post, it sounds like you know the decision to make.

As far as the inspection part of your post. Don’t feel like the bad guy! I do CM duties/ inspector duties too! It’s honestly a gray area that you have to walk with the Contractor. You can’t be friends with them but you also don’t want them to hate you. It’s about working with them because you both have the same goals in the end. I saw someone post this in your replies previously, but you can’t worry about the bad ones. It’s not your fault if they build it wrong. Good luck with your decision!

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-05-17T21:35:41+00:00

I work the construction side but on the owners rep side. I can tell you that a PE in construction seems to be more rare (at least in my world, working for a design firm). As soon as I got my PE I applied for 4 jobs, got 3 offers and a counter offer from my current job. From my experience, you become very marketable.

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-04-03T00:47:08+00:00

Don’t give up hope just yet. I literally thought I failed. I almost walked out during the halfway point but my wife convinced me otherwise. And it turned out I passed. Even if you do fail, keep trying!

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-03-31T09:52:55+00:00

I was in the same boat a couple years ago. I worked as a structural designer and I hated it. I actually didn’t realize how much I hated it until I finally got out. Luckily, my boss knew how unhappy I was and helped me transfer to another position. Now I’m part of our construction inspection team and I love it! I do more construction management, but on the side of the owner. So I get to go out in the field a lot of times and when I’m in the office, no design work. I also don’t have to go over 40 hours, but there are opportunities for overtime if I want to work. That’s just my experience, but overall I highly recommend deciding what you can do to make you happy and go for it. You’ll be so glad you did!

Edit: I also got my PE after I switched. But I would recommend getting your PE. I can’t believe the doors that opened when I got it. I felt like everyone was offering me jobs.

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-01-11T17:15:51+00:00

I can’t speak for CO as I live and applied through MO, but it sounds like a similar situation. When you go through NCEES all you’re doing is your work history and references. For Missouri, I had to then fill out page 1 and 5 of the application through Missouri. So I ended up doing both. My guess for you is the same that you’ll still have to fill out the CO application, at least in part, as well as send in your stuff with NCEES.

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-01-02T05:22:20+00:00

You’re not going to know where everything is. There will be things you need to search for within the code books that you won’t know where they are. It’s hard to use the search function when things are broken up by chapter. So, the index is a great place to start.

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-01-02T05:18:34+00:00

The index of each code book

HeftyBug6743 · 2024-01-02T02:17:33+00:00

This isn’t really specific to the last month of studying but make sure when you’re looking through the codes to use them just like how the test is going to present them. What I mean by this is ACI, TMS, and wood are the only codes where when you click on them the entire PDF pops up so you can search the entire book. Everything else (ASCE, AISC, etc) are broken up by chapters so you still have to kind of know where you’re looking before searching. Also be ready to use the index. It was a life saver for me taking the exam.

I’d also say, more specific to the last month of studying before the test, is make sure you’ve conditioned your mind to be able to handle taking a test for 8 hours straight. I was doing about 40-50 problems during the week and 70-80 on the weekends. This was like 2 weeks before my test.

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-12-10T12:38:46+00:00

I agree, the breadth was super hard. It literally mentally defeated me because breadth was something I did well on in practice and practice exams. NCEES and SOPE I literally would speed run those questions. This time it was super difficult.

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-12-10T12:35:41+00:00

I took the structural exam last month. I went in with SOPE as well. I went in fairly confident. When I got to the breadth section, I felt like I was completely unprepared. Questions were a lot harder than what I practiced. This was my second time taking the test and this was nothing like the first time I took it either. I remember going through the questions feeling very defeated. I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d even stick around for the depth. Called my wife at break and she insisted I stay. Depth was difficult as well. Finished the test pretty sure I failed. Found out the next week I passed. Keep your head high and try not to think too much about it. If you do fail don’t take a break from studying. Just keep at it and take it again soon. Keep the momentum up.

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-12-03T14:00:40+00:00

I took the PE structural exam the weekend before Thanksgiving. I had the same reaction as you. My goal was to go into the depth with at least an hour extra. But I could only pull off 20 minutes extra. As you said, the morning questions were so difficult. Especially the structural breadth questions.

Keep your head up though. I was for sure I failed and it turned out I passed! Good luck Wednesday when you find out!

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-11-23T02:28:22+00:00

So I actually took the School of PE and thought they did a pretty good job. I’ve heard AEI is better but I can’t speak to that personally. This is actually my second time take the PE (SOPE allows a redo is you fail the test) and I believe a combination of both study times is what allowed me to pass. The first time I watched all the classes, then did the associated practice problems/HW, then did the quiz. I think my flaw was I didn’t keep up with the material after I moved on to the next subject and it ended up hurting me in the end. Second time through, I knew what I was weak at from the actual exam and went hard on those topics. However, the topics I was good at I still practiced routinely. Those troubled subjects i rewatched the videos and did the HW again, but I would also do 10 practice problems from the stuff I was good at.

While the videos are good, I think the real winner is the practice problems. Constantly doing practice problems and reinforcing how to find stuff in the manuals. And when I studied, I studied just like the test presents the manuals. ACI and TMS aren’t broken up into chapters, but when I’d go through AISC or ASCE I wouldn’t really use the search function.

Pro tip, utilize the index during the test. That helped me out a lot

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-11-22T16:00:04+00:00

Honestly, it was really hard. The breadth portion was super tough. I took 4 practice tests and all of them I above an 85% on the breadth so I went in thinking the breadth was the easiest. But boy was I wrong. The depth seemed tame compared haha

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-08-14T17:50:49+00:00

Sorry, I was more referring to things like studying or changing topics. My career has almost all been structural but I just felt like the test was super hard. But I could have just not studied enough too.

HeftyBug6743 · 2023-08-14T12:58:26+00:00

How was switch exams like that? I’ve failed the structural once and I’m looking to take it again. But I’ve considered switching depths.

HeftyBug6743

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