How do you stay motivated?
How do you stay motivated?
(OP)
As I approach my PE test I find myself with books and time in front of me, yet I can't get motivated. Any ideas or suggestions?
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How do you stay motivated?
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How do you stay motivated?How do you stay motivated?(OP)
As I approach my PE test I find myself with books and time in front of me, yet I can't get motivated. Any ideas or suggestions?
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
If you don't have enthusiasm for your chosen profession I would be concerned that you are in the wrong profession.
Getting licensed as an engineer was one of my primary goals in my career and it meant furthering my ability to provide engineering services, earn more money for my family, and grow in knowledge and abilities.
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: How do you stay motivated?
A recent study shows that the most productive people work for 52 minutes, then take 17 minute breaks.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Consider how many years are ahead of you. Are satisfied to plateau right now?
I don't know if I'll ever change my mind. Maybe eventually I just stop associating age into the equation but: I am far too young to stop growing and advancing. I don't want my career to "stay the same" for the rest of my life, based upon today. I love what I do and where I'm at but a huge factor in that is my continued education and professional growth.
What doors will be closed to you if you don't pass?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
One of the things that has personally affected me over the years is that I discovered that I do love to get up in the morning and go to work.
The old saying: "If you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life." always seemed to apply to me attitude.
There were days, and sometimes weeks, when I was working on something that wasn't all that fun and did make it hard to get motivated.
Money, food, etc. are certainly motivators in a way, but taking the PE exam (I've taken PE, SE1 and SE2) all were challenges that I found I was naturally motivated to take on.
For you not being motivated to prepare for the PE could be caused by many things so I guess I was a bit too abrupt with my response...my apologies.
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH, MA)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com
RE: How do you stay motivated?
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
When I was getting ready to take the California Civil PE in 1983, I created a realistic study schedule that focused on efficient preparation and avoided taking over my life. This was especially important because I had a wife and toddler at home (still have the wife and the toddler is now a mother of two herself). Except for one week down and out with the flu, I stuck to my schedule.
I limited my study materials exclusively to Lindeburg's PE review manual…well, darned near exclusively. I made this decision after watching a co-worker/friend run himself ragged preparing for the test the previous year. This guy is the best technical engineer in my age group that I have ever worked with. He's smarter than me, but he made several bad decisions related to his preparation. Oh, he passed the test the first time, but until he got his results he thought he had failed and failed badly. Here is what he did wrong: [1] he bought three different review manuals and went through them all, and [2] he took a 12-Saturday review class at a university 90 miles away and across the Los Angeles metro area. He also had a wife and toddler at home at the time.
When it was my turn, he loaned me two bankers boxes full of his review materials. To be polite I took them, but I didn't even look at them except to note what was in the boxes. I had already decided that Lindeburg's manual was better than the other two he had bought.
Here is what I did instead. My Lindebrug's manual had 17 chapters, so I set up an 18-week schedule. On Tuesday night (after my daughter went to bed) I would read a chapter and take notes. This usually took about about an hour. On Thursday night (again, after my daughter went to bed) I would work through the example problems in the chapter, which also took about an hour. Then, on Saturday (during my daughter's afternoon nap time), I would work on the problems at the end of the chapter. This took anywhere from less than an hour to about two hours. Wash, rinse, repeat the next week. I had set aside an 18th week for a "flip the pages review". However, since I lost a week due to illness, I compressed the last week's chapter to Tuesday and Thursday night, did a quicky review on Friday, then took the test on Saturday. BTW, if I ever finished early for one of my study sessions, my reward to myself was time to write programs for my HP-41 calculator for topics in that chapter.
When all was said and done, I felt perfectly prepared AND well-rested. The California Civil PE in those days was 8 word problems in 8 hours. You were given 20 optional problems and 1 mandatory seismic problem to choose from, show your work, and partial credit is scored. As I worked through my 8 problems I kept a running tally of how I thought I scored on each one. Halfway through the afternoon, I knew I had already reached the cut score, which was a big boost of confidence.
I hope this helps. Good luck.==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Good luck!
Please remember: we're not all guys!
RE: How do you stay motivated?
YouTube: Marty Lobdell - Study Less Study Smart
Its a little long but the advice is logical, effective and comfortable.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
1. You've already paid to take the test and for the testing materials.
2. Potentially more employable, eligible for promotion/raise
3. Future possibilities (e.g., business ownership)
4. It's better than watching reruns on TV ;)
5. P.E. can do some things that other engineers cannot legally do
6. Given all things are equal, a P.E. will probably stay employed longer than a non-P.E. during layoffs
7. May be required to maintain current job
8. It's easier to study alone, than with an infant that is <6 weeks old & mommy just went back to work (promise me, I know)
Even if a P.E. isn't needed for your job, having it gives you a lot more employment possibilities than a non-P.E. I work for a State agency where a P.E. is not required, but every few years management indicates they're considering requiring all of the engineering positions to have a P.E. For myself, since I have my P.E. I don't have any anxiety when these things are announced, but the non-P.E. do get a worried look.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Another reason that should be added to your list would be to not have to retake the exam.
I know several engineers that struggled with passing the first couple of tries. They felt there was more pressure every time they would have to take it again.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
That is some fairly poor logic. You must not be married, or have a job, or not have experienced a [insert any challenging life event]. So much to life is recognizing and following the right thing to do, regardless of our level of immediate enjoyment.
It should be about the long game. The hard work will pay off in the future with sustained enjoyment. Future Leftwow will thank young Leftwow for this.
"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Same is true for bored ass teachers giving students boring af math puzzles.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Making the blanket statement "If something isn't fun, you shouldn't do it" is an over-simplification and doesn't hold water for anyone beyond the age of, say, 15.
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
Now as for the good and bad aspects of working, in my situation, being a 'member' of the clique it meant that I often did get better treatment like being given the opportunity for specialized training in new technologies (like being part of the first group sent to learn the CAD/CAM software), attending trade shows, being invited for dinner when a big customer was in town, etc. And of course, part of his reputation was that he tended to ignore those who were not part of the clique. Also he tended to question peoples abilities, often in front of their peers, sometimes along with an appropriate expletive or two. Now don't get me wrong, I had been on the receiving end of these situations, just that I was willing to let it pass since I knew that eventually I would get some sort of 'perk' to make-up for it. But it also meant that we (clique members) often got what other people considered as really rotten assignments, like getting a phone call early on a Saturday morning telling you to get to the airport as there was a ticket waiting for a flight to some industrial paradise like Cleveland, OH or Oakland, CA or Kingston, ONT where some customer was complaining about some piece of equipment that we sold them and they had been promised that someone would be there to 'fix' the problem ASAP. Now it turned out that these 'assignments' were not punishment but rather because our boss trusted up to get the job done. He just assumed that we could do the job and he trusted us to do it no matter what. Of course, we eventually got rewarded, either by getting one of those 'perks' I previously mentioned or even an extra bit when the annual merit raises were handed out or even a promotion when something opened-up.
So I guess the lesson is that there is always good and bad in any job, and even when it may look like the bad is the result of some unfair or unjust situation, it really does depend on where and how you fit in and what its real impact is on you.
Now as for a postscript, the boss that I was taking about was eventually 'fired', but while the official story was that (and it was something that was hard to dispute) he had not treated his subordinates with respect and fairness, the real back-story was that he had had a long-term running feud with upper executives and due to some really odd circumstances, he was very well liked by our UK-based owners and the local executives were afraid that he might blow the whistle on them for some poor decision that they had made that cost the company a lot of money unnecessarily but which had not yet become apparent to those UK-based owners. When I got the opportunity to make a career change a few months later, it was an easier decision to make since I had actually liked my old boss, flaws and all, and felt that he was screwed out of his job in the end, views which I expressed when I had my exit interview.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: How do you stay motivated?
The motivation factor is the specific reason I went the prep course route to study for my PE. I did great in school, got a BS and an ME,
honor society, etc., but that doesn't mean I wanted to study for another test! Nor does it mean I chose the wrong career! Sheez. If it's too late to sign up for a prep class, just force yourself to focus in two hour blocks. If you are like me, you will probably find that some things are easier to stay focused on/motivated with than others.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
www.SlideRuleEra.net
www.VacuumTubeEra.net
RE: How do you stay motivated?
I think you'd be surprised how children and teenagers are honest and haven't yet learned to rationalize everything, rationalizing is a coping mechanism we all develop to cope in this rotten world. But that doesn't make it right. I'd trust a teenager more than a middle manager when it comes to telling me what's what. Teenagers truly realize that "if something pretty much sucks... it sucks." I'm not immune to rationalizing and I'll do what I need to keep my job. But I won't let that fool me for a second I'm simply using an irrational coping mechanism.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
f-d
ípapß gordo ainÆt no madre flaca!
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
RE: How do you stay motivated?
Don't make the mistake of not asking for help from your superiors or experienced colleagues, though. Don't be afraid to let them know -early- if you're expecting to not meet an expectation, so a Plan B can be put into place or to get you the help needed. Don't make the mistake of thinking anyone out there is going to hand you the answers. Now you've got to do the legwork to find your own.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
You might have particularly noob managers and mentors, in the sense that they don't seem to know what their job entails. Our company has typically operated under the "truck" scenario, i.e., if a particular engineer got hit by a truck, would the knowledge they had still be available? If not, then something is not being done right. The converse is that you can lead a horse to knowledge, but it's up to them to drink it in.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: How do you stay motivated?
Even though your decorum is a bit rough, I can understand. It sounds like you need to build a bank of confidence for yourself. Maybe you can try to change your perspective on taking the test for the first time. It isn't the end of the world if you don't pass the first time. If you pass, awesome. If you don't, you can take note of what went wrong; if you think it has to do with a lack of solid experience (at large, good experience requires good mentoring), consider making a move where mentoring is a higher priority. It doesn't have to be a race, particularly if your firm has principals who do all of the sealing.
"It is imperative Cunth doesn't get his hands on those codes."
RE: How do you stay motivated?
1.) Don't be so hard on yourself. I don't care your age/years of experience, be proud of the work and schooling you've been through to get to this point.
2.) Spend time with friends.
3.) Get outside in the fresh air.
4.) Exercise.
5.) Take a vacation.
6.) Exercise again because it's great for your brain.
7.) Commit to a study schedule.
8.) Study
Many engineers (myself included) too often forget that spending time AWAY from work and studying is a great rejuvenator. Now...you'll still need to study, but how about taking a mental chill for yourself and clear your head a bit before the big push? If anything, it might bring some clarity to your future career path.
A few years ago I was working for a large, national consulting firm...the principal structural engineer admitted to me in private conversation that he did not pass his SE test on the first attempt...life is a journey, and none of us are perfect.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
even if you're not 'motivated', don't 'feel' 'ready' etcetera etcetera etcetera. pay the fee, set the time, commit, now.
i have 5 EITs working for me currently. I am pushing them all for 'asap'... and i really don't care if they fail, i mean i do, but, in the bigger picture, i don't, ecause they can take it again...and with more understanding, wisdom, whatever....
like slideruleera above, take it anyway, ASAP
DO IT NOW
BTW, did you notice in "Apollo 13" the guy using a sliderule in the crisis. Dear Leftwow, It's Time to Kick some Ass.
RE: How do you stay motivated?
totally agree