A few of us have had the pleasure of taking an 8 hour long exam, but if you haven't, here is how the whole group goes down. These types of exams are usually required to perform some type of professional work such as a lawyer, engineers, accountants, other professionals etc.

Getting there early.... So early that you get there the night before!

I'm lucky to have a friend who lives just 10 minutes from the exam center, who also happens to be taking the same exam. Sleeping over his place gave me a bit of an advantage since I could get an extra 2 hours of sleep, avoid the morning commute and parking debacle that plagues NYC. And to keep things consistent with my brain, I brought my own pillow so I could feel like I was sleeping at home. I had zero reasons to miss the exam, short of both my buddy and I sleeping past our alarms.

The line at the exam

It's no hidden secret that engineers like to be on point, so my friend and I both headed over to the exam center earlier than the recommended time of 7:15am. As we approached the entrance, it seems like every other engineer thought the same and got there earlier than we did, so the line ended up stretching around the whole block. Fortunately the testing agency did a great job at getting people in, because once 7:15 hit, all 500 examiners were inside the building with 10 minutes.

All seats are pre assigned months in advance, so there's no worry about getting a "good spot", in fact the longer you were outside, the better off you were since you had fresh air and could stand rather than sit, which is something you would be doing for the next 8 hours.

The ridiculous things that people bring to an open book exam...

Since the exam is open book, you're allowed to bring the recommended references and your own notes, provided they are neatly bound together. The reality is that you don't have the time to look through all your references when you are under the pressure of time. But that didn't stop some of the examines from bringing their lunch and the kitchen sink. Here's one of those times where I really wish I had a camera to capture the photo.

One girl brought a hand truck that was stacked with 4 paper boxes - the types that held new reams of paper. But instead of blank pages, she filled it with bounded notes. I don't know how she managed to remember which note was here, but I hope she was taking the exam for the first and only time. I would have gone psycho if I did that much prep to fail!

Another guy brought a 4 wheeled pull cart with 30 or so textbooks. Now, before I make these examinees seem nuts, all of the book are fair game to bring, BUT there is a list of all the books that the exam may reference. So anything in excess of what is recommended seems a bit paranoid.

Here's the reason:

If you break out the raw numbers, you have

80 Questions
in 8 hours

Or six minutes per question. In reality, the easy questions could be solved within 5 seconds, and the tough ones could take up to 10 minutes. Depending on how many questions are easy to you (or difficult), you'll either have more or less time on the more difficult questions. But if you are stuck spending your time flipping through pages, you'll run out of time. So you really need to optimize what you decided to waste your time on, because you might never find your answer.

The exam went well for me, but not for everyone.

My friend told me about a girl who was found crying in the bathroom because she left her ID at home! Imagine preparing for months to get to this point, only to forget one small detail to ruin it. She'll have to wait till October to take the fall exam, which isn't too long, but could feel like an eternity if your mind's been stuck on exam mode for months already. Sucks to be her, but all it does is remind us to be more careful playing a high stakes game!

While running to the bathroom, I saw an examinee standing in the hallway, being told the rules and regulations by an exam proctor. In one hand of the exam proctor is his answer sheet. In the other hand is the rules and regulations book and an HP graphing calculator that has a color background like a Gameboy color.

Unfortunately you are not allowed to have graphing calculators (even though it's open book). So what happened? They confiscated his phone and threw him out.

Sucks to be him.

did I pass?

At the end of exam, I felt like I did everything in my power to study and prepare for as many topics as possible, but I didn't account for the number of questions that told you which book and where to find the answers. The issue here is that if you don't have the reference, you are at a disadvantage because the information can't be rationalized to an answer. They are simply facts. It must be read and taken directly from the reference manual.

That's the one part of this exam which I felt is a bit bogus. How would having a book make you anymore or less of an engineer is beyond me.

I felt confident in passing, but there is always that slim chance where I screwed up too many things and failed.

I hope this gives you guys a brief review of what the exam is like!

Photo of the Day!

I'm standing on top of a 11,500 gallon gravity tank. Gravity tanks are designed to be filled with water via pumps from the lower level. When the water is at the top of building, gravity pushes it down with what engineers call "Potential Head". Head is the name used to describe energy in water, and it is measure in feet.

The higher the water it is, relative to a certain point, the more "head" there is, or "feet" of water.

So if you move water with a small inexpensive to operate pump, you can move large volumes of water to the top of the building and let the "gravity head" push the water back down.