Latest News

Background  

Alec Rynda, Design Engineer, Bolton & Menk  
4 Years in the industry  
Municipal  

PE Exam Journey  
I was motivated to pursue my PE license by the overwhelming number of coworkers who have done the same. It is a way to grow in your professional career and opens new opportunities.  

I took the PE exam in April 2026, taking the Water and Environmental discipline because I felt that was the most applicable based on the work that I currently do.  

Study Approach  
I utilized the EET prep course to study for the exam. I found this course extremely helpful and encourage others to take this course as it provides structure, lectures, practice problems, quizzes, problem explanations, and simulation exams to utilize while studying.  

My study plan consisted of mapping out the different sections of the exam over 16 weeks, with practice problems and exams to fall into the last 3 weeks.  
The study resources I found to be the most helpful were the one-pagers (one-page summary of a topic), quizzes, lecture problems, and simulation exams. I felt like the simulation exams were the right difficulty to prepare me for the actual exam, since they were more challenging than the real thing. I also would highlight and make notes while watching the lectures, which helped me decipher which components were important and should go on my one-pagers. Then, after I would take the quizzes for that section, I would reevaluate my one-pager and emphasize or add things I found to be utilized and important.  

Tips & Lessons Learned  
Study strategies consisted of reviewing the content from the sections to make a one-page review sheet prior to taking quizzes helped refresh me on the content. I also would do the example problems prior to the instructor so I would actually work it out given the information we had discussed that far as opposed to just watching how it was done. I also set a hard time at the end of the workday (mine was 4:30), when I would stop working so that I could study. I also found it helpful to find a quiet location in study rooms and turned my phone on airplane mode during that time.  

Biggest challenge was time. I had to dedicate weekends and most weekdays to studying. The study plan schedule was imperative to ensure that I kept on schedule and to track my progress. Some sections took longer than expected for me to feel confident enough move on, and I had to reallocate time to ensure I stayed on track. Sometimes that meant having to say no to invites to different things just to make sure I could keep my schedule.  

If I could do anything differently, I probably would have given myself a bit more time at the end to review before the actual exam. I took practice exams 3 weeks out, and then a simulation exam each weekend before my exam so I could review each one for a week. I think it would have been even better to give myself 2–4 weeks after reviewing the simulation exams to further review the rest of the content for a bit and retake the practice quizzes.  

Exam Day  
Experience was very similar to the FE from 5-ish years ago when I took that. You get a number, get a locker, read the information form, they check your glasses, check and clear your calculator, perform a palm scan, give you dry-erase packets and markers, sit you down at a computer, and let you know that you can have earplugs or use the noise-canceling headphones. You get a 50-min break when you finish the first portion.  

Tips to manage stress are to take the simulation exams to get used to how the actual exam will be. The instructor of the EET course (Nazrul) preaches the 3-pass method. That consists of tackling the easiest questions first as you go through and flagging longer and more challenging ones. Then taking another pass and knocking out the next easiest that you hadn’t previously done, then finishing the remainder on the 3rd pass. He says you can guess on roughly 4 per section (8 total).  

Advice  
Create a study plan, determine when you want to take the exam by, and map out the different sections and make a buffer for when sections take longer than expected. I would recommend enrolling in a study course. It helped give dedicated content and lessons on the different sections of the exam and provided helpful structure. Create one-pagers to use as review for sections. I remembered equations easier because I could envision where they were on my study one-pager. Do tons of practice problems. NCEES reuses problems, and multiple people have said that a problem they used to study ended up being on the exam, or one that was very similar. Many of the important problems in the study course showed up in the exam, and it gave me a sense of familiarity that instilled confidence while I was testing. Rest the day before the exam. One piece of advice my mathematics professor cousin gave me was to rest the day before a big test. This is something that I have seen great benefit from to lower stress and recharge from the amount of studying that you have been doing.  

Since I don’t have my PE yet due to waiting until after the June 30th renewal period, I can’t speak directly on how it has impacted my career, although I have used elements from the exam and studying in the work I have done. I have applied several concepts from my PE exam preparation, including an improved understanding of the USCS soil classification system, as well as performing calculations for average daily water and sanitary demand. These are areas that I likely would not have developed the same level of familiarity with outside of studying for the PE exam.  

Personal  
Outside of work, I like to play softball, longboard, attend church and Bible study, cook, and read.  

A fun fact about myself is that I high-fived Major League Baseball Hall of Fame Twins player Joe Mauer at a game in the 2000s.