se 2
 

se 2
hi guys,
i took the se 2 on friday. i went in with the attitude that i need to provide them a good final design for the questions. i felt pretty beatup and didn't have enough time to finish with the quality i'd like. in some panic areas, i think i missed some things too.
how did you guys feel after taking the se 2 (for those who took it and finaly passed)? do most engineers come out feeling pretty beat? did i go in with too much emphisis on getting the final product perfect (like we try to do at work)?
it took twice for me to pass it. it seemed to me like a crapshoot. you either get something you know how to do or you're toast. on my first one, they gave us a really hard seismic design problem. one of my buddies is a seismic nerd ;) from the west coast who'd just moved east and he flunked too, so i didn't feel bad. by an hour into the afternoon, i knew i was deadmeat.
the second one had easier seismic stuff and a bunch of concrete design, so i came out of there knowing that i passed by a mile. i had a buddy who hadn't done as much concrete and he wasn't fast enough at those specific tasks, so he flunked that one too.
anyway--that's how it was when i took it (2001-2002? can't re
what states are you folks from?
do you have an application tales?
i'm from ohio. funny thing is, i felt better about the seismic than anything else
geez, i'm scared now.
lol
i'm a mid-atlantic guy. se in illinois.
it took a while to get the illinois license, but i screwed up a couple of things on the application.
how does the content of the se1 and se2 exams differ?
the strl i exam has a lot of easier questions across the breadth of structural engineering. it includes 20% +/- bridge the last i heard. the strl ii contains a smaller number of much harder questions. most folks i know passed the strl i the first time, but took multiple tries at the strl ii. that was 8-10 years ago, so it could be different now.
if i recall correctly, a few years ago the passing rate was under 10% for the se 2.
i see last october the passing rate of first timers was over 60%. the structural 1 pass rates for first timers was 47%.
maybe they are a little easier now?
ahunt, perhaps you're right. i think the strl ii was about 15% the time i took it and the strl i was around 50%.
i do think it's really cool that one can completely avoid bridges in the strl ii--gotta focus on the positives!
i was so glad to be able to avoid bridges!
i wonder though, if oct will go to aisc 13th, and ibc 2006, as well as aisc 7-05? that will be ugly if we have to re take it.