Mechanical vs General FE exam
Mechanical vs General FE exam
(OP)
I am determining how to pursue the FE exam, but I have heard that I shouldn't (as a mechanical engineer) take the Mechanical FE, I should take the General FE which is easier in the mechanical aspect but more diverse. Would the choice between these two affect my ability to take the PE in a few years? I haven't found any good info about this process in my research.





RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
It's not even registered on your certificate which you chose.
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
I did the general as suggested and passed first try. I do recall a guy from work (who was also a student taking the FE) commenting that he thought it strange for us to take the general exam. It worked for us.
I'm now getting ready for the PE test. FE test choice had no relevance whatsoever. In fact it never even came up. I doubt they even have the records anymore.
Ed
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
The way I looked at it was I would be taking the mechanical PE exam, so might as well take the mechanical FE and get a good taste for the questions asked. I also found the FE to be the harder of the two, I was surprised at how easy I thought the PE exam was in comparison.
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
Good luck.
David
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
Edward L. Klein
Pipe Stress Engineer
Houston, Texas
"All the world is a Spring"
All opinions expressed here are my own and not my company's.
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
David
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
For me, it was a complete no-brainer of a choice. I'd been out of school and come back, so all that math and physics was ancient history, while the stuff in my own discipline was freshly learned. So I took the discipline-specific exam. In civil engineering you can get away without knowing the finer points of math & physics, so by taking the CivE afternoon test, I didn't have to bone up so much on the general stuff. Some of my classmates chose general because they were afraid of the discipline-specific material, and then complained because of the depth of the math & physics they found on the general.
For ME, you may very well have to know all the math & physics to that depth anyway just to do the ME problems. I don't know.
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
Does it matter to any employer which you take, as long as you pass it? I personally don't know. It does make a difference which specific PE exam you take if you have to affix your PE stamp to any documents. Personally, though a PE, I've never affixed my stamp to anything, I just don't work in a place that requires it.
RE: Mechanical vs General FE exam
Bottom line is that if you pass both the general morning session and any afternoon session you have passed and can call yourself an EIT. NCEES doesn't provide any information beyond pass/fail to anyone but you.
David
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
www.muleshoe-eng.com
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