Justin Lancaster, Registered Professional Engineer

Back in October I took the professional engineering test. For those of you not familiar with the process, here is how it all works...

First, you graduate high school and get into college, majoring in Engineering (in my case, Environmental Engineering). When you finally graduate (or usually just before), you have the opportunity to take a test, called the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) (aka Engineer-In-Training) test. This test is eight hours, and covers everything that should be learned by a student in any engineering discipline. This test is pretty hard, with about %60 or so passing any given sitting.

When you graduate and get an engineering job, you start to gain experience. Once you have had 6 years of qualifying experience (various states differ on exactly what qualifying experience is, but basically it is work requiring engineering knowledge) you can apply to take another test, if you can get some already registered professional engineers to agree that you are ready. If the college you graduated from is ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accredited some states will reduce the experience requirement to 2 years.

This test, the Professional Engineering (PE) Test, is very difficult, and consists of eight hours of detailed questions in all areas of your engineering discipline (again, for me that is Environmental Engineering). If you manage to pass that test (again, about 60% pass), then you are a registered professional engineer.

Anyway, back to me...

Back in October I took the PE test, and just learned earlier this week that I somehow (quite miraculously) managed to pass. So I am now a Registered Professional Engineer, especially qualified in Environmental Engineering, in the State of Oregon! Anyone who has an engineering background will know what a huge milestone this is.....