During the senior year of college, many engineering students are faced with the decision of taking the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam. Known in short as the FE Exam, it is the initial step toward getting a professional engineering license. The earliest you can take the exam is in the senior year of undergraduate engineering school. If you're such a student, why should you look at taking the exam sooner rather than later?
Since you are still in engineering school, you are already learning the very equations and types of problems that will be asked of you on the exam. You are also not far removed from studying certain subjects. For example, you likely have seen basic engineering physics or linear algebra not more than 1 or 2 years ago. It is much harder to remember how to do those types of problems if you are several years removed from studying it. No matter how much you study later, you will never be more prepared to tackle the exam material than you are now.
As a current engineering student, you are already used to studying and sitting for long exams. Think about it. If you are working at a full time technical job, are you really going to want to review study guides and practice solving problems? In addition, you won't be in the "academic" mode. As you will find out, working in the "real world" is a completely different mindset than being in school. Thus you might as well take the exam when you're still in school.
College is a great time in a person's life as you haven't faced real world issues yet. You likely aren't worried about the pressures of a high end job, stressing over your mortgage payment, or chasing around your small children. These things can dramatically get in your way if you decide to take this exam later in life. Thus it will be a lot easier to focus and prepare for the testing when you don't have to worry about these issues.
Sitting to take the exam doesn't automatically require you to continue on to become a certified professional engineer. First off you are assuming that you actually pass the exam (it's not just a walk in the park). This is just the first step on the ladder toward getting licensed. There are additional steps you still have to take like gaining real engineering work experience as well as successfully completing the Professional Engineering Exam. You are also not required in any way to continue on to performing these actions. So whether or not you decide that getting a PE license is a valuable thing to pursue, you will at least have options.
To wrap up, the FE exam will be the easiest when you are still in undergraduate engineering school. Waiting to take the exam makes it more difficult to pass, thus get it out of the way as soon as possible. You may or may not have intentions of getting your PE license at this time, but you don't want to create obstacles for yourself in the future, if you do decide to go that route.
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