PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
(OP)
Hello Dear Engineers,
I live in Los Angeles and have about 4 years of experience. So, recently my senior Engineers confirmed that they can serve as a reference for my PE application. I am filling out the forms for them but I need feedback, comments and suggestions to improve the descriptions of the job I performed under them. I know you can say one thing in a lot of different ways and in this application I want to use the most suitable words to make sure that my application does not get rejected. I am copy pasting the job description here. Please give me some tips on how to improve it.
Description of Engineering Tasks & Duties:
(1)Measured Lumens, Color temperature and found the Efficacy of LED Light Fixtures in order to check compatibility with California title 24 and UL lighting requirements.(2)Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures. (3) Measured temperature at different positions of fixture housings to verify if they comply with UL requirements.(4)Modified specification sheets and installation instructions for fixtures
Level of Responsibility:
(1) Inspected and verified the electrical of track fixtures, pendants, rope lights and several other light fixtures before shipping to customers.
(2) Managed UL listing and California title 24 lighting requirements of new developed LED light products.
Description of Engineering Decisions Made:
(1) Verified the electrical and lighting properties of new samples of LED retrofit kits by measuring the current, voltage and wattage using multi meter.
(2) Separated the different color LED retrofit kits based on their color(warm, warm white, white and cool white) by measuring their color temperature.
(3) Assisted the customer service department with basic dimensions, wattage and spec sheets of different light fixtures.
I live in Los Angeles and have about 4 years of experience. So, recently my senior Engineers confirmed that they can serve as a reference for my PE application. I am filling out the forms for them but I need feedback, comments and suggestions to improve the descriptions of the job I performed under them. I know you can say one thing in a lot of different ways and in this application I want to use the most suitable words to make sure that my application does not get rejected. I am copy pasting the job description here. Please give me some tips on how to improve it.
Description of Engineering Tasks & Duties:
(1)Measured Lumens, Color temperature and found the Efficacy of LED Light Fixtures in order to check compatibility with California title 24 and UL lighting requirements.(2)Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures. (3) Measured temperature at different positions of fixture housings to verify if they comply with UL requirements.(4)Modified specification sheets and installation instructions for fixtures
Level of Responsibility:
(1) Inspected and verified the electrical of track fixtures, pendants, rope lights and several other light fixtures before shipping to customers.
(2) Managed UL listing and California title 24 lighting requirements of new developed LED light products.
Description of Engineering Decisions Made:
(1) Verified the electrical and lighting properties of new samples of LED retrofit kits by measuring the current, voltage and wattage using multi meter.
(2) Separated the different color LED retrofit kits based on their color(warm, warm white, white and cool white) by measuring their color temperature.
(3) Assisted the customer service department with basic dimensions, wattage and spec sheets of different light fixtures.





RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
I don't know if what you have listed above is actually considered qualifying experience. I may be wrong but you may want to pick or word things differently.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
Thanks for your comment. This was my first job right after college and I worked as an "Engineering Intern". I was not assigned any specific project but I was assigned to help a Senior Engineer in measurements and basic analysis in terms of R&D.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
Your response was the most helpful one out of all the above. I have another question here. At my current job, I am performing the engineering tasks that you described (designing fixtures, performing calculations, creating drawings, etc) and I can use that for my qualifying experience but the problem is that all the four references will be signing on the same activities and they are from the same company( my current company). Is that acceptable?
I can remove this experience from my record because what I have stated is exactly what I did.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
While you can't lie on your experience record, try to look for ways that you can accentuate "engineering" (i.e. design related) activities of your job experience rather than activities that are more quality related. The board is going to be looking for engineering experience to allow you to sit for the exam. As California only requires 2 years experience, you might have enough to be allowed into the exam.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
Good luck.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
As you might have noticed, I am not a native English speaker and writer. Could you please give an example on how I can make it sound like an Engineering experience. Like for this one,
Communicated with vendors to order tools and accessories for the assembly of light fixtures.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
That kind of experience would likely not count. I fully agree that communication is an important skill for an engineer, but it is not an engineering skill for the PE exam. You need to use certain buzzwords: designed, calculated, analyzed, etc. You should also mention the name of some of the codes that are required for your particular exam.
I am making a code up here, but lets say ASME 22-12 is required for the exam. You could change your experience to be something like "Designed the system for <blank> and procured the required accessories to be compliant with ASME 22-12." Of course only say things if they are true.
When I filled out my experience, I broke it down by project. Most of my projects lasted 6 months to two years. I gave way more information than I needed...I think.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed
I am the Corporate Engineering liaison to technology suppliers and other high end-product facilitators. In this role, I provided engineering direction to vendors and subcontractors for state of the art fabrication and inspection of electrotechnology devices to insure compliance with International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards.
RE: PE(Mechanical) Exam's Application! Help needed