FE Exam

I attempted the Fundamentals of Engineering exam yesterday up in Timonium. This is the exam that engineers usually take during their senior years or immediately after graduation, but that I - due in part to poor academic advising and laziness/complacency on my part, never got around to taking. But it's a prerequisite for the Professional Engineers exam/certification, a good thing to have, in my field.

Ugh. Not pretty. I honestly don't think that I passed. There's a reason that most people take the exam while still in school - the material is still fresh, and they're used to taking exams. Six years out of school, I have no fresh material, and I haven't taken an exam over that whole time period.

Bottom line - I didn't study enough. I really needed more review of several topics, plus more practice working problems in a timed environment. I can look to my recent travels (3 weekends away in the 5 weeks leading up to the test) as part of the problem, not that that's anyone's fault but my own. I don't find out the news until July, but I can't say that I'm optimistic at this point. This test won't defeat me though, I'll almost certainly be taking it again in October, if necessary.

Last time I was up at the fairgrounds in Timonium, it was for a beer festival. Let me tell you, that was much more fun than an eight-hour engineering exam. If you have to choose, go with the beer every time.

In other news, both local baseball clubs, my hometown O's and the Nationals, are doing well. Baltimore is doing what it couldn't do last year, beat the NYY. As long as they keeping winning 4 out of every 5 games versus New York, that's a good season - if only because it shuts up all the local Yankees fans - you know, the ones who have never lived in any proximity to NYC - who invade Camden Yards each series. Now I don't begrudge real NY fans for rooting for their home team, I even know a few NYY fans who are decent human beings, believe it or not, but these people that show up in Baltimore grew up in Maryland and started rooting for the Yankees during the Joe Torre era. How convenient - they were also big Bulls, then Lakers fans, and these days they just love their New England Patriots. Maybe eventually those 'loyalists' will stop showing up and go root for somebody else. I know, probably too much to hope for.