When an aspiring Professional Engineer decides to get serious about pursuing engineering licensure, he is inspired to take action. Motivation is at its highest when we first decide to embark on a major goal like preparing for the PE Exam. But motivation works in a cycle. And when the process becomes tough or boring, it is easy for procrastination to creep in, and in the worst case, abandonment or deferral of the endeavor.
Conscientious and well-intentioned PE candidates understand this challenge. They recognize the need to push themselves to stay the course and keep moving forward, but the various methods they choose are not always effective, and in some cases may be counterproductive. In this article, I’ll offer 5 suggestions successful candidates have used to push past obstacles and pass the PE exam. I’ll explain how each tactic can be a double-edged sword and what to watch out for to make sure you get the maximum benefit with the minimum risk.
Spend More Time
When I ask candidates how much they are studying, they often assume there is a “right” answer and that I always want them to study more. True, all other things being equal, more study hours is generally better, but in reality, not all hours are created equal. Some are high quality, some are low quality, and some are so poor they actually undo your progress.
For example, consider college runners. These athletes have been running 30 miles per week for several years with good results, and in order to excel at the next level, their coaches have them run 60+ miles per week. The ones that survive the training get faster and may later attribute their success to having more than doubled their training volume. However, many other runners will not reach the top tier because they are derailed by illness or injury. Clearly there is an upper limit to the amount of physical training you can absorb in a given timespan.
Just as most of us are not elite athletes, most of us are not elite students either – and that’s OK! Even for those with a strong academic background, it’s been several years since the study muscle was fully engaged. And there is usually more on your plate than when you were a full-time student. The good news is that you can stretch yourself and become more efficient without dramatically increasing your volume of study time.
Takeaway #1: Increase your hours per week – not your hours per session.
Rather than committing to 3+ hour sessions during which it is difficult to remain focused, find creative ways to spend more time studying. Try studying every day, even if some days are short 45 minute sessions when you don’t have a full 60-90 minutes available. Try adding a second session on some days, such as before and after work, or squeezing in 30 minutes at lunch if you have the right environment and energy for it. If you have extra time and are in the flow, add 20-30 minutes to any session on the fly. Just don’t get carried away and convince yourself you are being productive when the focus starts to diminish. Better to call it quits and come back later or tomorrow re-energized.
Go Deeper
So what is the best way to use extra time? Many candidates’ first instinct (like mine) is to do more problems. This is effective up to a point, but since the PE Exam is predominantly about depth over breadth, once you have selected a sufficiently large set of problems that are saturated with the most important topics and concepts, the best use of your time is to gain the deepest possible understanding of those problems that you can.
Takeaway #2: Focus on depth before speed.
Imagine a beginner chess player who insists on playing 5 minute ‘blitz’ games because she believes that with enough repetition, she will eventually improve. The problem with this strategy is that she is never giving herself enough time to plan, analyze, and reflect on the attributes of that particular position and how it is similar to or different from positions she has seen in the past. Rather, she is playing by instinct, looking for quick tactics or combinations that are easily remembered but also easily defended against. The alternative is to play a long, slow positional game where you have time to think ahead, weigh alternatives, and adjust your plans as the game unfolds. Paradoxically, the player who chooses slow time controls improves at playing fast games as well, because of the deep analysis they repeatedly perform.
In your PE Exam studying, you want to emulate the player who plays slower games and analyzes deeply, rather than the player who simply plays more and more blitz games. The candidate that adopts a thorough and detailed approach will extract more essential knowledge from 50 problems than the average candidate gets from 500 problems.
Get More Reps
What about repeating problems? Many candidates get frustrated if they are unable to solve practice problems in 6 minutes or less because this is the average amount of time available during the PE exam. (480 minutes / 80 problems total = 6 minutes each) A typical strategy candidates will apply to overcome this challenge is to repeat the problems multiple times in order to increase speed. They hypothesize that solving a problem involves a kind of intellectual muscle memory like shooting a free throw.
Takeaway #3: Repeat problems to build the solution roadmap.
However, solving engineering problems is not like shooting free throws because there is much more planning required. Solving a problem involves first deciding what given information is relevant and what can be ignored, gathering data from the PE Reference Handbook, selecting appropriate formulas, and creating a mental roadmap of the solution path. Roadmapping a problem is highly nonlinear and divergent. When you first start looking at a new problem, your background knowledge, experience, creativity, and critical thinking are simultaneously serving up ideas about what might be involved in getting you from point A to point B. Some of these ideas are not useful and will later be dismissed. Others are crucial but not initially well formulated. And some links in the chain are missing and a temporary placeholder will have to be used until you are able to connect the dots. The first time we are able to solve a new problem is something of a small miracle. But once the solution roadmap is defined, the process of solving is a trivial, mechanical process of substituting values, punching numbers in the calculator, checking units, and a final sanity check to make sure you have answered the question being asked and that the magnitude of the answer is reasonable.
The purpose of repeating problems is not to memorize the solution roadmap for every problem you study with. Rather, it is to regenerate the connections from first principles to enable you to navigate similar problems in the future. You are primarily rehearsing the planning portion of the problem more than the convergent portion which can be done on autopilot. Therefore, the best time to repeat problems is generally after you have had a bit of time to forget exactly how you went about it the first time so that you will be forced to think your way through it again. At first there may be only a faint, barely perceivable pathway in your mind, but after a few cycles of forgetting and repeating, deep permanent grooves will be formed. When knowledge is acquired in this manner, there is no risk of forgetting what you learned before your exam because it is not something you know per se, but rather something you are able to create in real time. Once you become good at roadmapping, the problem of speed will take care of itself. And until you adopt this philosophy, no amount of extra time will make the difference.
Create More Time
Once busy engineers commit to spending a significant portion of their available time studying, they may find it is still not sufficient to make meaningful progress each week. Even if it is a reasonable amount of time, e.g. 7-10 hours per week, there may be a desire to go faster. And since pursuing professional licensure is a worthwhile goal, candidates are prepared to make sacrifices to free up extra time.
Takeaway #4: Protect activities that boost your study performance.
For example, less partying is likely to be a net positive during your study process. While seeing your friends less is not ideal, they will recognize your ambition and support you if they have similar values. Less late nights make for better sleep, and reducing or eliminating alcohol improves sleep quality and clarity of thinking. Reducing time spent on hobbies may also be helpful, though perhaps it is best not to eliminate this aspect of your life completely, otherwise you may come to resent the process of studying and struggle to show up with the patience and positivity that are conducive to progress.
The key with cutting back is never to skimp on sleep or exercise. While staying up late or getting up early are ways to find more hours in the day, the quality of all the hours in each day decreases, including the study time that was already baked into your schedule, potentially resulting in a net negative to your progress. You may find you are putting in more time and getting less done, which is extremely frustrating and counterproductive. Furthermore, getting some movement throughout the week in your preferred manner, whether it be a gym session or any type of cardio, is a net positive to the quality of your thinking, and these positive effects compound as you maintain good habits. Unless you are an Ironman triathlete, you’re probably not spending 15+ hours per week training, so it is better to protect the modest amount of time you are spending exercising rather than trying to reclaim time from this precious area.
Accelerate
One of the primary reasons to push yourself when studying for the PE exam is to accelerate the schedule and get it done sooner rather than later. Candidates frequently ask me whether speeding up is advisable, and if so, how to go about compressing the timeline while minimizing the risk of failure.
The default timeline of 4-6 months that I typically recommend includes a soft start and finish. The starting phase represents about 10% of the total hours in the program and involves passively watching concise 5-10 minute lecture-style videos covering fundamental topics. This portion can easily and safely be sped up by spending more time.
The practice problems phase, which makes up the remaining 90% of the time, can also be sped up by 25-50% depending on your availability and capacity to absorb the material without losing focus.
Takeaway #5: Don’t cut your contingency time.
The final phase is reserved for contingency and is given a 2-4 week allocation. This final phase is a natural place to look for time savings in an accelerated schedule. However, I strongly recommend against cutting into this portion of your schedule for several reasons. (1) Candidates often don’t know what they don’t know before they start studying. There are typically expectations about how the study process will be, but in reality things play out differently, and extra time is a useful safety margin to have in reserve. This time may be used to repeat problems that were flagged the first time through. (2) Unforeseen distractions may arise such as business travel, obligatory social engagements, family emergencies, or illness. (3) Allowing the practice problems phase to run straight into your exam date leads to rushing and decreased study quality due to the stress and anxiety experienced as the deadline approaches. Having a brief window of at least 48-72 hours to handle logistics, recover, and relax prior to the exam will improve performance and peace of mind.
In summary, it is certainly possible and reasonable to go faster by deploying additional hours for the purpose of studying, but the contingency phase should be protected even when the overall schedule is accelerated.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article has cleared up some of the common misconceptions about how to push yourself when studying for the PE Exam. If you are inspired and motivated to make your PE exam preparation faster and more productive, these recommendations will serve as a caution against potential pitfalls as well as guidance on what has worked best for hundreds of mechanical engineers on the journey to professional licensure.
In summary, (1) increase your hours per week without marathon sessions, (2) make depth your priority over speed, (3) repeat problems with emphasis on planning the solution independently, (4) find creative ways to add more high quality study time, and (5) accelerate your schedule without sacrificing your safety margin.
If you found this article helpful, I’d be honored to support you on your journey toward professional licensure. To learn more about the process and our programs, contact Dan@mechancialPEexamprep.com.