Isaac (00:10): What is up everybody! Isaac Care with Civil Engineering Academy, excited to be with you on another podcast episode. Thanks for liking and subscribing, checking things out. We have helped thousands of people help pass their FE and pe. We'd be pumped to help you. If you're in that realm of studying for that, definitely check us [email protected] and let's get you passed. But today I bring an awesome guest on that recently passed her PE exam in water resources. Her name is Annise Dieters and she is awesome. She went to school in Utah, Utah State was able to pass her FFE there, had got married, started having kids, and came back to the workforce and realized we needed to get the PE done and taken care of and was able to balance young kids with studying. I wanted to see what her experience was like and share tips with people that maybe in a similar situation.

(00:56): And so she took water resources, was able to get this thing passed, but it took her two attempts. First attempt wasn't successful. She immediately got back on the bus and got it done the second time. And there's a lot to unpack there as well in terms of her mindset and why she was able to get on the bus and get it done quickly after. But she's also a member of our course for our PE review course. You can find that at civil pe review course.com, and was able to receive support there among other things. So anyway, she does some awesome stuff. She worked for Bureau of Reclamation. She now works for a company called IMEG as a consultant and has always kind of been in that water resources world and has some valuable insight there between working for the federal government and contractor as well. So the private industry. So lots to unpack, but without further ado, I will go ahead and shut up. Let me get to my interview with Annalise. I think you're going to enjoy this one, whether you're preparing for the PE exam or you just want to hear some things about the different areas you could work potentially if you're starting your career. So anyway, without further ado, let me get to my interview with Annalise Eaters coming right up after this.

(02:01): Alright, Annalise, we're rocking and rolling. Thanks for joining me today on the Civil Engineering Academy podcast. I appreciate you doing this with me.

Anellise (02:08): Yep. Thanks for having me.

Isaac (02:09): Yeah, I'm excited you've been able to pass your PE exam and ready and roll out there. So how you feeling?

Anellise (02:19): It's still surreal. It's been a long time coming, but yeah, feeling super accomplished for finally passing.

Isaac (02:28): That's awesome. Well, congratulations on passing. It's a massive milestone. It's the springboard to really any civil engineering career out there. So something we harp on a lot, but I'm excited for you. You went through it. I wanted to bring you on and talk about your experience. So I guess before we do that, why don't you give a quick introduction of yourself. How did you end up in the world of civil engineering? Why did you choose that route? What are you doing right now for work and what not?

Anellise (02:57): So my name is Annise Dieters. I currently live in Billings, Montana. It started out kind of how I found engineering was high school, well actually middle school. I started getting ahead in math and I actually just had a friend, family friend suggest engineering, and I had never even heard of it, so I just like, sure, I guess I'll try it. So I went into a community college. I stayed at home, did my first, my associates there, and I did the intro to engineering course and I just loved it. And as soon as they covered the civil section, I was like, that is what I'm doing. I'm doing civil engineering. So it just took off from there. I went to Utah State to finish my bachelor's degree in Logan, Utah. And then while I was there I interned with a Bureau of Reclamation for two summers, and then I worked there for about eight years after college. And then I took a two and a half year hiatus after I had my third kid to raise my three boys for a couple years. And then I just entered the workforce again and I now work for a private consulting firm called Imeg. And they're actually worldwide, but they have a couple offices here in Billings actually. They're buying out a lot of companies. And so the company Imeg I'm with is now merging with the existing Billings office. So yeah, it's good.

Isaac (04:22): Wow. Well there's a lot to unpack there. Thanks for giving us a brief intro. So I imagine you had to take the FE while you were in college. Was it a requirement while you were in there?

Anellise (04:32): Yes, it was a requirement to pass. Actually. You had to pass, otherwise you couldn't graduate unless you passed. So yes, I actually did take the FE twice. The first time I took it, I thought I could just do a quick one week refresher and pass and then that did not work out. So I took it again this summer of my Huh?

Isaac (04:58): I said it's definitely a hard one. That definitely,

Anellise (05:01): Yeah. Yeah. I had to brush up on some of those side topics. But then this summer, last summer I interned and the summer I got married and the summer before I was graduating the semester I took the FE again. So that was a lot, but I did it and then I went back to school for one more semester and finished.

Isaac (05:24): Wow. Okay. So that happens. You're married, were you done with school when you started having a family?

Anellise (05:32): Yes, I was working with the Bureau of Reclamation when I started having kids. Awesome.

Isaac (05:36): So

Anellise (05:36): After college we moved up to Billings, Montana, and then I worked there for a couple of years before we had kids.

Isaac (05:43): So I guess what put the PE on the radar? Was it something that you always wanted to get, you knew you wanted to get it? Was it something you needed right now at work or were you just kind of like, I'll get it when I can? What was your thought process about getting the pe?

Anellise (06:00): So I always wanted to get it right away as soon as I graduated and soon as I could take it, as soon as I found out it was even a thing that existed, I knew I wanted to get licensed. And I mean a lot of it is job security, but also the flexibility and independence and just even just a milestone marker. I knew I wanted it. Oh my gosh, I brain forwarded. What was I going to say? Yeah, okay, we'll go there.

Isaac (06:31): You just knew you wanted to do it. Well, I think what people may have some questions on is how did you balance studying, preparing for this with family?

Anellise (06:42): So that was really hard. So I wanted to get it right away, but then we decided to start having kids and I put it on the back burner and I thought I'll just get it when they get older. Where I was at with a Bureau of Reclamation, the specific group I was in, it wasn't a requirement, but if I was going to move or advance at all, it was a requirement to have your pe. So I kind of just kicked the can down the road and thought I'd do it when they were later, they were older. But when I went back to work after staying home for a couple years, I knew I couldn't go back to the federal government right now, it's not a stable place right now, but I knew for the private sector you need your pe. So I actually struggled when I was looking for jobs because I wasn't necessarily an intro engineer or fresh out of college or new hire, but I also wasn't licensed. So I was stuck in this weird category interviewing for jobs where I didn't feel like I qualified for either position, either licensed or fresh out of college because I was in this medium weird category. So how I balanced it was I knew it was going to take me longer to study. I just thought I had seen all of the internet follow these schedules. Even your guys' suggested schedule. I did use it, but I modified it. I knew I wasn't going to be able to give as much time if I could do it longer.

Isaac (08:15): That's

Anellise (08:15): In shorter chunks. So it was like a marathon instead of a sprint. So I'd studied for a couple months before I started really applying for jobs, and then I was hoping to start a new job after I took the pe. But the last job I interviewed with, they wanted me to start right away and they offered for me to work part-time until my test, it was only a month away, which actually was a huge blessing in disguise. I was panicking internally of the thought of balancing all of it, a new job and everything that comes with it along with studying, but it allowed me to pay for daycare so I could have funds to pay for daycare and or babysitting so I could study. That's perfect. Yeah, I found friends, I found other babysitters. I found anyone that could help on the weekends or later into the evening. It literally took a village to help me get through this with three small children.

Isaac (09:21): Wow. Well, okay, so you have three small kids and you're trying to balance all this. You get a job, they say, let's get you part-time. That's amazing. Yeah, that really is a blessing that happened. I feel like you can share a unique perspective that you worked for the Bureau of Reclamation and you're working for a consultant. Could you share just maybe a little bit about what the differences are there working for the federal government versus a consultant? Because some people when they're choosing a job or they're looking to line up their career, may have those choices and sometimes they don't know exactly what those differences are. So I'm curious if you could share maybe a little bit behind the curtain of what those two differences are so far that you've experienced.

Anellise (10:13): Yeah, definitely. I didn't know either. Actually how I found out about the government positions was someone I worked at a post office and someone came in and told me, go to USA jobs.gov and that's how you'll find the best internship. So I went on there and I just applied for every internship that could remotely apply and that's how I got in with the Bureau of Reclamation. I didn't even know what they were or anything, but that's how I found out about 'em. Kind of just a happy accident. But there are a lot of differences and obviously things have changed. Initially I would say stability in the federal government, but as we've seen that has imploded. It is no longer the case, but the work is different. It is definitely different. So for this is one specific kind of detailed example. Typically when you're working in the government, you're not charging to a specific project when you're in the private sector, I'm required to charge all of my time to a specific project.

(11:14): Well, I mean as much as you can, obviously there's overhead, but that takes a lot more detailing and concise, thorough review of what you're doing during the day and making sure your time is allotted correctly to each project because you have a client that you're watching a budget for. So that's private sector. And the federal government, from my view of it, you don't typically have that, but I actually did in my design group because we still were hired by an internal group to do design. And so we still had service agreements where we had to track our time and apply, or I guess code our time to charge to the specific project or item, which is unusual from what I've heard. And then obviously the leave is different, never going to get better paid time off in the federal government versus private. But I mean, I just knew that was one of my, I dunno, high priority items when I was looking for a job was I didn't care if I was going to find federal or not. I knew I need flexibility at least or good PTO because I have children.

(12:33): And actually when I interviewed for the first couple jobs, I was trying to be discreet about being a mother of small three children because I didn't want it to ruin my chances of getting a job. And then the last job I interviewed with was the one I ended up getting and I went into it and I said, you know what? My priority is my children and my job will always be second to that and I got the job. Yeah, I think you just have to find the right company. Also that does weigh your priorities too,

Isaac (13:11): And it's probably better to be honest and open about it. You need to find something that is flexible and works with your family life. And if a company, I mean, if you were to take a job that didn't work for it, you probably wouldn't like it or wouldn't stay very long if it didn't work out. So that worked out.

Anellise (13:28): Yeah, so that was also a blessing in disguise. I was grateful I didn't end up getting those at their jobs because they were known to be salary heavy hours. Makes sense. Not something I really was prioritizing.

Isaac (13:42): Do you think the draw and the push to get a PE was the same whether you were a federal employee or working in the private sector?

Anellise (13:51): No, I definitely think it was a lot more in the private sector. It just seemed like there was very little middle range for being not a new grad and not licensed. I mean there are, but it almost seemed like you had to have started fresh out of college to fit with a company if you didn't have intentions on getting licensed. That was my opinion. But there are positions in the federal government that do require license, and I think from what I've heard from outsiders who didn't intern with the government initially getting in with the government, you need a license. But because I had intern, I already had time and service, and so I could qualify for positions, but someone just walking straight into it would most likely need a license. So

Isaac (14:38): That makes sense.

Anellise (14:38): I guess it kind of, yeah, kind of scrambled.

Isaac (14:42): I'm just curious. I feel like you had a unique perspective there and so kind of jumped down a rabbit hole there, but it's good to know to know those things. So maybe let's dive into your exam prep a little bit here and maybe share some tips with others. So let's walk through, I guess first thing is, you know needed to study. I know you chose Civil engineering Academy as part of your preparation. I'm curious how you ended up choosing us over maybe others or how did you go about selecting someone to help you?

Anellise (15:16): Yeah, I actually did a pretty decent amount of research into the different courses. I knew I wanted a course, it had been 10 years since I graduated college, so when I was looking around for courses, I wanted to find one that had the newest PE changes in their course because now they removed the breadth and it's just depth and it was really hard to find. So when I contacted you guys, you were one of, I think the only ones that said your course was up to date with the newest exam specifications. So that was a huge selling point. And even just looking around at PP, I knew theirs was heavy in reading textbook time and I knew there's no fricking way. That's not how I study. So I went into the types of their lessons on demand or not, I knew I'd have to have something that was flexible, so on demand and not live. And then I just chose you guys. You guys were the only ones that checked all the boxes.

Isaac (16:23): Well, we're happy you chose us. I'm excited that you chose us and you were able to get a passing score. So excited about that. You mentioned a few things that helped you in the course, kind of this flexibility. Was there anything else that helped you? Could have been specific lessons, the practice exams or is there anything else specific that you found as you went through it that was kind of helpful for you?

Anellise (16:48): Definitely the practice problems at the end of each lesson, that was huge and that there was usually a wide variety of 'em. The practice exam too was super helpful. I remember I felt way better going into the exam feeling like I had already seen what it was going to look like and I had some time to play around with the different buttons and things and it looked exactly like the pe. So it was perfect.

Isaac (17:15): Awesome!

Anellise (17:15): Far as visual representation, yeah,

Isaac (17:18): We definitely try to mimic things, give people the look and the feel before the real exam experience. And I think practice exams are a real key to preparing for the PE exam. I'm curious if you have other opinions too. If you were talking to someone that was going to prepare for this, what kind of tips would you share with them to prepare?

Anellise (17:41): Yeah, so as I saw everywhere when I was looking at my own, looking at tips from other people, practice problems for sure is just the biggest thing to hit. But I did actually have a wrench thrown into my plan. I studied what I thought was pretty hard. I took the PE in February and I didn't pass. I immediately signed up to take it six weeks later as soon as I could in the next round. And all I did between that first attempt and second attempt was practice problems. And that's when I emailed you guys and I was like, Hey, what the heck? I felt like I was prepared. I felt like I had this, do you have any suggestions of what I should do? And that's when you guys sent me the reference book that had over 500 practice problems. It's a new one that just came out and that book was a saving grace.

(18:30): So I ended up doing hundreds of those problems and by the end of it I was timing myself to see if I could finish the problems with only the references under six minutes. And that was, if anything, practice, but also a huge confidence boost to feel like, Hey, I got this. And then even just one thing I did too when practicing was, instead of once I felt like I had the math down pretty well, I stopped solving it all the way through. I just went through and said, Hey, how would I solve this? And if I could find the right equation, the right method, I would go onto the next one so I could get as many, I guess, setting up of a problem as I could. That was the hardest thing is in the PE exam, I felt like I knew all the topics pretty well, but they had just asked them, just tweaked them just enough that I didn't quite know what I was doing,

Anellise (19:26): So I was rolling the dice if I was doing it right or not. So doing those practice problems, that book actually went through every weird way they could ask each type of question. I felt like they did. That's

Isaac (19:38): Awesome. When people exhaust every single problem that's out there, I mean, we do not gate keep information, so it's like, Hey, you need more problems, let's keep going and here's some other resources that we think can help you. So practicing problems is key to passing this thing. You just got to keep going, don't get off the bus if you fail, keep going.

Anellise (20:02): Yeah, and I think that was the biggest thing for me too, is just not taking it as such a soul crushing. I did let myself sulk for a minute and then I was like, you know what? Time to dust off myself and keep going because I'm already in it this far. And I listened to one your podcast that talked about whether you should switch topics or not, and you had this bar graph that just totally aligned with me where you were like, you studied, you got this material, this is where you're at, and if you were to start over with a new subject, you'd be starting from ground zero versus if you go at from the topic you were at, you can just keep building. And so that was my, I don't know, push to be like, okay, I have a good solid baseline. And the only way I had a good understanding of all those different topics was from taking your course and doing those practice problems because it had been so long since I took it

Isaac (20:53): For sure.

Anellise (20:55): The other thing I tell people, one last thing, sorry, is there are a couple states that let you take to PE right out of college and then you'll be licensed in those states. I think last I looked was Utah and Illinois. I could be totally wrong. So you can take your PE and then you won't be licensed until you get your four years, but at least they will let you take the test, which I was going to do. I actually was trying to get licensed in one of those states then decide to have kids. But I think that's the way to do it before you have kids, while some of the stuff is still fresh, because yes, you're going to learn in your job other things, but I think we get so focused in our jobs into one little area of civil engineering that you're not practicing all of it,

Isaac (21:43): Right? You're focused on a sliver, you're never studying all of it at one time.

Anellise (21:50): And the PE NCES said they'd removed breath, but in my opinion didn't. It's still a thing.

Isaac (21:56): Yeah! It's still a thing. They kind of just mixed it in with the other instead of having it chunked out into breadth and depth, they've made it all one subject, but you still will have easier and harder questions in the exam, so you're going to have questions that you can punch through and solve fairly quickly, and then other questions are going to be difficult. And other ones you're probably straight up guessing, I'm assuming so.

Anellise (22:26): Yes, very much so.

Isaac (22:28): Yeah. How much do you feel like you guessed on the exam?

Anellise (22:34): The first time? I know it was a lot the second time. I don't know. I felt like it was a lot that I had to complete. I think maybe at least five. I had to blindly guess on just no clue at all,

Isaac (22:49): Which isn't bad. You generally want to, I mean, my role of thumb is you generally want to keep the guessing to blind guess to about five or less. So I think that's probably a good thing. Good rule of thumb, if you don't know how to or take a stab at anything, we probably missed something along the way that maybe we needed to see,

Anellise (23:12): But they do throw in those curve ball a couple questions that either are new or they know might be extra hard and some people don't know

Anellise (23:21): How to answer it. One thing that kept me from panicking on those is I may not know how to solve it, but can I make my best guess using judgment? And so if I would stop trying to panic that I have no clue what to do on that question, I try to narrow down at least to two, then I'm down to a 50 50 chance instead of 25.

Isaac (23:40): That's great. Were you surprised by the amount of theory on the test? Was there a lot of theory and were you surprised by it?

Anellise (23:49): I don't think so. I don't think I was surprised and I don't feel like there was a lot, but you guys actually prepped me a lot to realize there will be theory. I think you guys did a really good job about making sure the course was very open and clear about that. And then you guys also have the 500 plus theory examples, and so I went through, I don't know a good chunk of those also

Isaac (24:13): Yeah.

Anellise (24:13): When I was practicing problems.

Isaac (24:15): That's great. Do you feel like we supported you in questions? Could you describe maybe the support you received through us?

Anellise (24:24): Oh yeah. I feel like you guys were probably going to block me at some point. I had a lot of questions and it was great support because it was prompt. That was one thing I looked forward to when I was looking in the courses. Is there a way to communicate if I had questions and I didn't want to wait even two, three weeks to hear an answer because I was studying it right then, and if I get stuck and have a question, I needed kind of an immediate response. I know that sounds needy, but you guys were great. Never felt like I was a burden even though I was sending a lot of questions and emails and it was all questions were welcome. It was very open and just felt like it was a great environment to ask questions to.

Isaac (25:07): I do remember you asked a lot of questions, but it's okay. People, if you've been out of the game for a while, there's usually more questions and even through the course we know we try to give you just what you need to pass. And sometimes people, they need more because we've forgotten so much and we're happy to fill in those gaps. If you're missing pieces of knowledge that you've forgotten, maybe you've forgotten how to interpolate or something like this, we could walk through those steps for you. So I'm glad that you felt like everything went okay there.

Anellise (25:43): Yeah, it was great. I kind of shot myself in the foot because the topic, or I don't even know how you phrase it, not the topic, the subject of the type of civil PE I took, I never actually did in work. Oh boy. I just had an interest in it and decided to completely go AWOL and learn something different. So it was great you guys were able to answer some questions.

Isaac (26:09): Okay. You have to tell our audience, which depth exam did you take?

Anellise (26:15): I took the water resources and environmental.

Isaac (26:18): Okay. And that's a great one to take. Were you surprised by any codes or standards? Did any of that creep up on the exam? You're like, this is definitely from the codes or I've noticed that the specs are changing next year and they've increased the amount of codes and standards for water resources. I think it's up to seven in the next year that they're adding. So you got it knocked out at a good time.

Anellise (26:43): Seven different codes?

Isaac (26:45): Yep.

Anellise (26:47): Wow. Okay. Yes, I did. No, I felt like it was very manageable because we only had the two plus the reference book in the water resources, the 10 state standards, but I had never heard of 10 state standards before I started studying for the PE, so that was different. But I made sure to go through and do a pretty good study of those two. I didn't necessarily read it back to back, but just even actually, I don't know how people are going to respond to this, but I did use chat GPT to ask a decent amount of questions. Obviously always verify that they're correct, but I even just ask them like, Hey, what's the difference between these two references? Can you give me a basic outline and understanding of what these two are trying to that portray differently and how would I go into this exam knowing which reference I should use based on a specific question? And that was huge because I actually kind of understood what was in each reference. That's

Isaac (27:46): Smart. Yeah. Yeah, it was a big part of our everyday life now. But like you said, it's like I don't know if it's quite hit engineering as well as other areas, but I don't doubt that it will one day and it's always good to verify the stuff that it's spitting out for sure. So great job on that.

Anellise (28:08): Yeah, if I could not find where it was a question or an answer in the reference, I'd ask, sometimes I'd ask chat TPT, but I'd always verify, but at least I would try my hardest to find it first and then that's great. It was a good backup plan instead of asking you guys another question,

Isaac (28:28): Everyone and everything questions. That's good. That's how you learn, bro, that, and we welcome questions. So I know we're joking around, but if people have questions, you're listening to this, I mean we'll answer them. Even if you aren't a member of the course, we're here to help you. We want to help you on your journey. So I'm also curious, I love to hear this, but so you go through the exam experience, you had to wait for your results, what was waiting for your results? And then could you walk us through the day you received them,

Anellise (29:01): The pass or fail? Maybe we'll go with pass.

Isaac (29:06): You could do either one because there are people out there that have failed and they want to know what that experience was like, and you turned it around, you got back on, and then what was it like when you passed?

Anellise (29:19): Okay, so I took it on a Friday the first time, and I knew they released the results on Wednesdays is what I heard on Reddit, whether that's so far, that's been true both times. So I found out when I was on a work trip, I called my sister for emotional support before I opened the dashboard and I got an email that I got the results called her, opened it, and so I didn't pass, and that was soul crushing. I was on a work trip with a coworker and obviously just wanted to go, I don't know, express my feelings in a million different ways, but I had to keep going for the day and go to work. So I let it suck. I was like, you know what? This sucks. I'm just going to let myself be kind of sad, mad everything, but it's not going to stop me. So the next time I took it, I took it on a Tuesday and I had to wait until the following Wednesday and I thought I was going to die waiting. But then when I finally got the email, I opened it by myself and I saw that I passed and I actually refreshed the page because I was like, no, is this real? And then I called my sister.

Isaac (30:39): That's great. There's a bunch I want to unpack there, because often people that take the exam and they have failed the first time. What amount of time did you give yourself to go through that? I'm angry phase before you started studying, and then when did you actually register for the exam and take it again? Was it three months, was it four months? How long was that period? And I know we had a conversation in there between the fell and the past of chatting quite a bit about it, but I'm just curious your thoughts on that, because some people always have questions as to, geez, should I wait longer to take this? What should I do and how much time should I give between attempts and all that? Jess?

Anellise (31:27): Yeah. So I was on a bit of a time crunch. I knew I was, but I think it was a good thing. I let myself feel really sad and upset for about a week. And then I took the break to not study, and then literally the next, after that first week, I started studying again before I had registered for the test. So I went to my new boss, told him I didn't pass, which sucks because I had just started a month before and they were letting me do part-time. So that took everything in my soul to admit that I didn't pass. But he was super awesome and he offered for me to go part-time for another month so I could take the test again. He actually is on the Montana board, so he's very familiar with the testing procedure and up to date with pretty much how it rolls.

(32:20): So I was super grateful. I told him, I said, thank you, because if I started working full time, there's no way I could study. I would have time to study with my children. So to go back to another question you asked, that was another reason why I decided to get the PE while I wasn't working was because I knew once I started full-time, it's really hard to make time for that and family. So I can totally sympathize for people who are working full-time trying to figure out how to make it work. But then after my boss said, you have the go ahead. You can do part-time for another month, but by the end of April I need you to be full-time whether you pass or fail. But he said, if I don't pass again, there was a course options through my work, he was going to start working on other ways that I could get study help, which was great. So I immediately registered for the test to take it as soon as I could the next term, in the next term or whatever.

Isaac (33:25): They offer it per quarter. So it's like if you take it near an end of a quarter, you could literally jump into the next month or depending on when you take it.

Anellise (33:34): And that was one of the reasons why I chose February. I think you had talked about it in one of your podcasts before about timing of taking it. And I knew I wanted to take it near the end of one of the terms, but not so near the end of the term that I wanted time at least a month. So if I didn't pass, I could study for another month and then take it right away again the next about a month later. So I kind of had a backup plan, and then when I found out I didn't pass, I did listen to a bunch of your podcasts about what to do because you talked about whether you should change your depth or not. And that helped me realize, no, I shouldn't. And then I just kind of reassessed my studying and was like, okay, is this what's working and what's not? Even locations of where I studied, I studied all over in the weirdest places.

Isaac (34:30): Well...

Anellise (34:31): Anywhere by home.

Isaac (34:33): You got to find your spots, you got to find your spots. You were mobile.

Anellise (34:40): Yes, I was.

Isaac (34:41): Well, I'm just happy you're able to do that. Some people get lost in the failures and they need help to get back on track. So it sounds like you had good motivation, you had good support systems through work, probably through family life too. It sounds like you had a lot of support there and you got to celebrate. So did you do some celebrating after you passed?

Anellise (35:04): Oh my gosh, it's been a blur since, I dunno, go to dinner. Oh, we did go to dinner. Yes, that is true. Yes. My boss gave me a gift card to go to a fancy place in town, which we don't go to fancy because we have children. So we took the kids not knowing. It was like, yeah, yeah. Basically we took the kids thinking it was some family place and it was not. So we enjoyed a nice steak dinner with children.

Isaac (35:41): Perfect. Well, I'm curious with your employer and working so closely on this, was a PE already having the PE built into their offer or was earning the PE now a potential for an increase down the road here?

Anellise (36:00): So yes and no. They knew it would be a potential, but they didn't build it into me in my job, which I think actually was nice to not have the stress of saying, well, you need to pass right now. So they were like, it's no big deal. If you don't pass now you're going to pass the next time or sometime later. It's fine. That helped relieve some stress. So when I did pass, I did get a bonus, which was super nice, and a mini pay raise, and they've already talked about me supervising, which is

Isaac (36:33): Wow!

Anellise (36:34): Terrifying. But great.

Isaac (36:35): Isn't that amazing what the license does? It just opened all those doors. Bam. It's awesome.

Anellise (36:40): Yeah, but I was like, maybe I don't want a license. I'm just kidding.

Isaac (36:44): It does, but added pressure. That's true too. But it's the profession you're in and it opens doors. So this is a door that's in front of you, so that's awesome.

Anellise (36:56): Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Isaac (36:58): Well, this has been awesome. You've shared a ton of tips and advice. Any last second tips you'd share with anyone preparing for the exam?

Anellise (37:08): I think just one thing I didn't hear enough of was getting a good support system and making your village of people that can help support you, whether you have kids or you don't. You need people to keep you accountable. Cheer you on. At least I did. It just helps keep me going. But definitely practice problems. That book I talked about, I can, well, you can probably put a link onto the...

Isaac (37:33): Yeah, we'll share that.

Anellise (37:34): The show notes. Yeah, that was super helpful. But I guess just don't give up and keep your eye on the prize.

Isaac (37:42): I like it. And I'm just curious, but would you recommend CEA to other students preparing for this, having gone through the experience yourself?

Anellise (37:51): A hundred percent, yes. Awesome. Yes, it was great. I tried looking into a couple different things after I failed and was like, well, maybe I should just try a whole new course. No freaking way, you guys. This was great.

Isaac (38:07): That's awesome. Well, we do pride ourself on the support. We hope that you felt that and glad that you were able to get through this. We're excited for your future, but thanks for sharing your experience and hopefully we will talk again soon.

Anellise (38:20): Alright, thank you.

Isaac (38:21): See ya.

(38:22): Hey, Isaac here again with Civil Engineering Academy. Hey, before we end this, I want to throw out an invitation for you to submit to us whether you have passed your PE or your FE exam, because I want to give you a personal shout out on our podcast. So give me an email, shoot it at [email protected]. I would love to know if you've passed your FE or PE exam. If you submit to me your information, I will get you on the show as a shout out for passing your exam because we want to celebrate the win with you because this is a massive milestone in your own career. So shoot me the information. I want to shout it out. I think it'll be fun. I think it'll be fun for me, it'll be fun for you, and we want to celebrate that win with you. So shoot me an email, [email protected]. Let's celebrate those wins together and we will see you on our podcast. Bye.