First, an aspiring PE must graduate from a four-year engineering program accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
ABET rates engineering programs based on how well they prepare students in the fundamentals of engineering such as mathematics, dynamics, fluids, solids and mechanics.
A PE candidate must then
pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, an
eight-hour, discipline-specific test designed to
determine whether a student has absorbed the basic
mathematic and scientific principles of engineering.
Prepared by the NCEES, the FE is conducted with
cooperation between the states in order to ensure at
least a minimum level of national standardization.
And like the SATs, the FE exam can only be taken in
authorized exam locations on prescribed dates in
April and October.
|Most states require four to six weeks to process
exam applications.)
