Isaac Oakeson: What's up, everybody? Isaac here with Civil Engineering Academy. Excited to be with you again on yet another podcast episode. If you haven't liked this or subscribed to us on YouTube, please do so. And if you definitely want more content, go check out our newsletter. You can sign up for that over at civilengineeringacademy.com, where you'll learn about discounts to our exams or courses, also about these podcast episodes, and other free content we produce, including practice problems on our very YouTube channel. So definitely go check that out.

Isaac Oakeson: But today, I wanted to dive into something. I do this virtually every year, but the NCEES puts together an annual report every single year. And I like to break it down with you and talk about what's in that report, because I find it fascinating how many people are taking the FE, how many people are taking the PE exam, what they're doing to promote licensure. They also talk about their budgets. How much money they made, where they're spending their dollars, and things of that nature. So I think earning your license is very important. They're always trying to be on the move and finding where there's legislation where they can help to promote licensure. Because governments, in some cases, are trying to reduce licensure in some areas. And sometimes civil engineers get roped up into that.

Isaac Oakeson: But anyway, the report kind of details all these different little bits and pieces. And so I like to walk through that with you. If you're gonna watch this on YouTube, I'll show a visual of that. If you're listening to this as a podcast, I'll definitely talk about it as well. So that's what we're gonna do, and that's what's gonna come up right after this. So thanks for hanging around.

Isaac Oakeson: All right. Let's dive into the NCEES 2021 Annual Report. We're just gonna go through this together because I haven't gone through it. This will be my first time going through it, and it'll be interesting to go through together as we talk about pass rates and what the most popular exams are, especially as things have gone CBT. I don't think this is gonna capture anything for the most recent PE exam, but at least will give us some insights into some things so you get a better understanding of maybe difficulty of the exams during this time or whatnot. So let's dive into what we've got here for 2021. And we'll just talk about it.

Isaac Oakeson: So, they got a nice little cover. "2021 Annual Report into the Next Century of Advancing Licensure. Sweet. We got an annual report with a little index here. They've got their new building, [inaudible] with the president's message. They've got a Centennial Celebration that concluded in 2020, and they've moved into a second century of advancing licensure for engineers and surveyors. Pretty cool. They talk about the challenges of COVID-19. "What does it take to meet the challenges and opportunities of a new century of licensure? This annual report details the NCEES's efforts in three broad areas, ensuring licensure's public protections, supporting the professions of engineering and surveying, and inspiring future generations of professional engineers and surveyors."

Isaac Oakeson: So it's gonna cover activities basically for 2021. But really that year covers from October of 2020 to September of 2021, as they have listed. Thanking the staff. Protecting their financial resources is a very key thing to them, especially as they navigated COVID-19. They talk about that. They talk about their operations were more than three and a half million dollars above budget for 2020 to 2021. Obviously, that probably came from the rush to move things to computer-based testing, to accelerate that. And probably with all these convention centers that they had to rent or reduce or, you know, bring down during COVID, it was kind of a pain.

Isaac Oakeson: Revenue was 3.3 million less than budgeted, primarily due to lower exam volumes for the remaining pencil-and-paper exam -- I can talk. I promise I can talk. Expenses were almost 7 million below budget, largely due to COVID-related reductions in travel, in-person meetings, and outreach and personnel stuff.

Isaac Oakeson: Here we go. It's a pretty-looking document. "Ensuring licensure's public protections." So here they're gonna talk about protecting licensing. "Charting a course for professions." All right. They've got committees and task forces set up. They had 14 committees and task forces, 122 members, and 56 charges. So the NCEES is made up of 69 licensing boards that regulate the engineering and surveying professions in the US. And they talk about that a little bit more in detail here. So kind of an interesting thing to talk about.

Isaac Oakeson: They talk about promoting responsible licensing. So they want to safeguard the health, safety, and welfare of the public. That's the ultimate goal of the NCEES efforts to promote licensing. And sometimes that comes under attack through regulation. People want to get rid of licensing sometimes, but obviously a license for an engineer, I think is more -- There's more weight to it to maybe cosmetology or something like that. So sometimes people are confused in the government arena when they wanna get rid of licenses for some things, and they kind of lump engineers into that, which can be a problem.

Isaac Oakeson: So valuing professional licensing in the US. So they've got a big link to that. They talk about the licensing, how important it is. Let's see. So the Alliance for responsible professional licensing developed several resources last year to assist with advocating for responsible licensing. The organization released its Valuing Professional Licensing in the US in February of 2021, and they produce first-of-its-kind quantitative research study to explore the impacts of professional licensing in highly complex technical fields.

Isaac Oakeson: This is an interesting thing. I'm curious -- You know, getting your license obviously is a springboard for the rest of your career. And, you know, it's tied a lot to your salary levels. So getting your license is definitely a must. I wish the world would recognize the impact of having a license, and really stamping something, and the responsibility that takes on for you as an engineer being the responsible person for that. I wish there was more pay involved with that. I don't know if that's gonna catch on anytime.

Isaac Oakeson: They're strengthening their international influence as well. So people outside the United States definitely wanna get this license. And so they have set up areas where you can test and get this. So they've got an agreement. The NCEES does. So, they've been focusing on leadership and collaboration for engineers and surveyors within the US. They're also trying to push for international stuff.

Isaac Oakeson: They're working with the International Engineering Alliance (IEA), an umbrella organization that coordinates seven international agreements for engineering education and mobility. And the NCEES represents the US in two of these agreements: the IPEA, which is the International Professional Engineers Agreement, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Corporation (APEC) Agreement. So last year, Patty, the NCEES past president and current executive director of the Nevada State Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, served as the chair of the APEC agreement. And they talk a lot about that.

Isaac Oakeson: So what they've got going on here is, they've set up these places, internationally, that you can take the exam. And at the close of 2020 to 2021, the NCEES international registry includes 731 active professional engineering members, an increase of 11% over the previous years. So the APEC agreement allows students to take exams in 14 countries be licensed. And the IPEA agreement allows 16 countries to be part of that. So, pretty cool. It's a growing license in international. So good stuff.

Isaac Oakeson: All right. Next, they talk about supporting the professions. Meeting the demands of the next century of licensure includes ensuring that the NCEES is providing exams and services to support member boards, licensure candidates, and professional engineering and surveyors. Lots of pictures of people coming to develop, looks like, exams and such.

Isaac Oakeson: So, they get together. They're trying to determine professional competence. So board members rely on the organization's licensing exams to provide a uniform standard of measurement, so that we are competent in our field as an engineer. And so the exams include the FE as well as the PE. They also have the surveying, which is called FS, and the PS for surveyors. And in the past year, 48,746 examinees took the FE exam. So almost 50,000, examinees took the FE, which is pretty cool. 31,000, almost, a little over 31,000, took the PE exam, excluding the PE Structural SE exam. And about 2,500 took the SE exam. So it seems like that's a growing field as well. So, just in comparison, exam usage numbers for 2020 to 2021 were higher for all exams compared to 2019 to 2020, which were severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Isaac Oakeson: So they're listing here that, for the FE, it was actually up 27%, the FS was up 43%, the PE was up almost 80%, the SE was up 134%, and the PS was up 38%. So obviously, those numbers -- COVID 19 took an impact on people taking these exams. It was kind of a pain in the butt to register, finding out your conference center got canceled or whatever happened to you. It was kind of hard to take these exams. So obviously those numbers have risen as a COVID restrictions have been eased. So the COVID 19 is still limiting some testing capacities. NCEES employed a range of measures to lessen the impact. Obviously they've pushed the PE to be a CBT exam earlier than they were planning to.

Isaac Oakeson: But they say here that the NCEES staff developed a virtual grading software for the SE to scores its constructed response or essay type questions. The grading typically called for an in-person meeting, but with COVID-19 protocols requiring virtual meetings, the staff devised new ways to ensure efficient scoring procedures. So more than 85 structural engineers across five time zones use the software to grade almost 5,000 solution pamphlets for the October, 2020 exam. That's a lot of exams, man. To address the reduced testing capacity at sites for pencil-and-paper exams, they added an extra day to the October and April exam periods, and they also added a regional testing option for the PE Civil Exam in January 21, providing additional testing opportunities in 14 cities across the US for the highest volume exam.

Isaac Oakeson: So obviously, they had a lot of issues with COVID 19, which really affected things. So between all of those exams, the, the PE the SE, the FE, and the survey exams, the PS and FS, there was almost 85,000 total examinees. So pretty cool.

Isaac Oakeson: Computer-based testing is kind of their next category that they hit. So in 2010, at the timeline, the council voted to move the FE and the FS exams to CBT in 2010. In 2012, they voted to move the PE and the professional surveying exam to CBT. And in 2014, the CBT for the FE started as well as the FS. So a little timeline, little history here. The professional surveyor CBT exam started in 2016. As we marched forward, they had more and more professional engineering exams to CBT. And here we sit in 2022, and we've got the civil engineering CBT exam that hit, which is the largest CBT exam. I think the only one left, if I remember right, is the SE exam, which is still on their list to do it.

Isaac Oakeson: They've improved, they've expanded their computer-based testing. They have a PE exam for a lot of different industries now, including fire protection, industrial systems, all that stuff. And who knows what other areas they might come up with. So, exam development in 2020 to 2021, there was 33 exams that they developed. There was 48 virtual meetings, and there was 1,340 active volunteers that helped with those exams. Crazy numbers, crazy numbers.

Isaac Oakeson: Let's look at the next category that they've got in the report, which is supporting exam administration. So exam administration's services administered exams for 45 US jurisdictions and four foreign countries in 2020 to 2021. So that's interesting. And administering exams outside the US, they have agreements with 16 foreign entities which we already talked about. So internationally, they administered almost 1600 exams for the FE and 537 for the PE. So that's kind of cool. This stuff is fascinating to me, because we are not only helping people in this space, but it's just fun to look at. I hope it's fascinating to you, whether you're preparing for your FE or PE to kind of know these numbers, because, I do find it kind of interesting to know these things. So almost 1600 people took the FE international and almost 550 took the PE. So, pretty crazy.

Isaac Oakeson: International exam administration agreements. If you wanna know where people are taking these, they have agreements to take FE and PE exams in Canada, a lot of different places in Canada. You can take it in Egypt. You can take it the Emirate of Sharjah. Maybe I'm saying that wrong. I don't know. Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Turkey. So pretty cool that you can take them all there. I wonder if they're gonna get agreements to take it in India and other places like that. So it's expanding.

Isaac Oakeson: They're also advancing mobility with record keeping and CPC. So if you are keeping track of your continuing education credits, you'll definitely want to keep using your NCEES account, because it gives you a free area, free place to store your credits, where if you're ever audited, you could quickly come up with that. So there was over 45,000 total records transmitted through that. So pretty cool.

Isaac Oakeson: Okay. CPC tracking, there was 23,000 account holders tracking CPC credits. So those that took, you know, any sort of class. There was 451,000 courses entered into the system. So quite a few courses. People are definitely using that now. It's a free way for you to keep track of your stuff so you don't have to keep all those continuing education stuff in your drawer or whatever you're using to keep track of that stuff.

Isaac Oakeson: The facilitated licensure with credentials evaluations. So in order for a school to be ABET-accredited, the NCEES credential evaluation services, reviews educational backgrounds of applicants against the NCEES engineering education standard. And you know, they help with that. So they evaluated over 2,600 evaluations in that year to help with credentials. So you wanna go to an ABET-accredited school, they make sure to help do that.

Isaac Oakeson: Another thing they talk about is Engineers Week. You know, helping younger engineers. Supporting K-12 initiatives. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on that, but just know that the NCEES helps with that. They donate money to help programs, and they do encourage younger people to find the profession of civil engineering, which is always good.

Isaac Oakeson: They also want to connect professional practice and education. So they support outreach initiatives at the college level as well. So it's not just K-12. And they do give awards for things. So in engineering, they gave a 25k grand prize to the Milwaukee School of Engineering, and they gave a 10k prize to a bunch of other schools. And they did the same for surveying to various schools. I'm not sure how you win that money. But they do promote these things. The award recognizes surveying and geomatics programs that best reflect the NCEES mission to advanced licensure. So I guess if you're a school and you're interested in getting that, you can definitely do that.

Isaac Oakeson: They advanced licensure for public protection. They actually kicked off a podcast, and on our very own podcast at the time we have interviewed the director of the exams. He has since retired. So they've got a new director over there. But we got interviewing him and then it was a short time later, they kicked off their own podcast. So they call it Advanced: An NCEES podcast Series. I thought that was kind of interesting.

Isaac Oakeson: So the NCEES partnered with a research firm called McKinley Advisors to uncover the types of resources and information and initiatives needed to raise awareness and boost recruitment in the professions of engineering and surveying. And I think as part of that, the podcast was released. And so they did that. It launched in September of 2020. So check it out if you haven't. And it's hosted by the NCEES chief operating officer, Davy McDowell. He highlights some things that they are developing over there. So good stuff. Definitely check that out.

Isaac Oakeson: Another thing they talk about is collaborating to meet the profession's future needs. And so they work with other organizations to further reach and promote licensure professions. And so that's something they work on. So in 2021, the NCEES completed its three-year, $3 million transformation partnership with Engineers Without Borders to promote licensure to the organization's diverse volunteer base, which is cool. And they talk all about that. So definitely something you'll want to read up on. They list who their NCEES board of directors are, starting with the president, Christopher Knotts, and trickling all the way down to other positions that are there as well. The new building looks nice. Good job on that.

Isaac Oakeson: They also break down their revenue and expense. So their total revenue, in 2020 to 2021 was almost $43 million. And they break that down. Total expenses was almost $29 million. So the change in assets that they list was about 14 million. So pretty cool stuff that they list all that there. You can read all about it and how their expenses are broken up between exam services, member services, meetings, outreach, personnel and HR, as well as general and support services. So pretty cool stuff going on there.

Isaac Oakeson: And I think that's it. They break down their finances. You can read all about it if you care about their finances. Obviously exams cost money and they make money from it. So own the name to advanced licensure, which is a good thing.

Isaac Oakeson: All right. That's gonna be about it. So we ran through the entire report. Hopefully that was a value to you. It's fascinating for me to go through these reports. Scroll back up to the top here, if you're watching this on YouTube. That's the 2021 annual report that they produce yearly. I like running through that with you because it's fun to hear the numbers of those that are taking the exam and what they're doing to promote licensure.

Isaac Oakeson: So if you haven't got your FE or your PE done, definitely check out our resources that we've built for you. We have The Ultimate Civil FE Review Course, as well as The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course. It's all built to help you ace these exams, start to finish. So check those out. You can get more resources at civilengineeringacademy.com. We wanna be there every step of the way to help you on this journey to become a professional engineer.

Isaac Oakeson: So hopefully this was a value to you. I enjoyed doing it, kind of walking through it. And I think it was a fun one to do. With that, we'll go and wrap this up. And we'll see you in the next one. Bye!