Isaac (00:10): Hey, what's up everybody! Isaac here, civil Engineering Academy. I want to jump on to a quick intro. Thanks for joining us today on this podcast episode. Appreciate you being here. I bring an awesome guest on previous student of our course for our PE, and he recently passed his water resources PE exam, so I had him jump on talk about his experience. Someone can always relate to folks' experiences and so it's always fun to hear their experience, but he had an interesting experience in college where he switched degrees from mechanical to civil. That's an interesting story, but I really wanted to just find out what the details were of him taking this exam. He moved into Washington. He worked some water resources doing all kinds of fun stuff there, but I think you could relate to a lot of the tips and tricks and kind of his own study journey and passing the water resources PE exam.

(00:56): So I wanted to bring him on, talk about it. I think you're going to enjoy this one. If you need help on [00:01:00] your own journey, definitely check us out at civil PE review course.com. We have definitely helped thousands of people there, whether it's on our YouTube channel or through our courses or exams, and we're happy to help you as well. Getting your PE is the springboard to the rest of your career. You can expect almost $40,000 increase after you earn your PE exam through your career. So get that thing done. It's important to do and we're happy to help you. But anyway, without further ado, let me get to my interview with Jared. I'll shut up and let's get into it. So thanks for being here. We'll see inside. This is welcome. Alrighty, we are rocking and rolling. Jared, thanks for joining me today on the Civil Engineering Academy podcast. Appreciate you jumping on doing this with me.

Jared (01:40): Yep, no problem.

Isaac (01:42): Well, I'm excited you passed your exams, right? You got that knocked out and you were a student of the course, so we will dive into those details. I kind of want to hear your own journey about all of this, and there's always something in there that will help the next student listening to this somewhere down the road. So it's always fun to hear people's journeys. But before we dive into that, why don't you just tell us a little bit about your background, your own background, maybe what you're doing for work, what led you to civil engineering in the first place?

Jared (02:15): Yeah, so I'm Jared Foulk, pleasure to be here and I'm from Colorado Springs, Colorado and grew up down there,

Isaac (02:25): Pretty blessed.

Jared (02:27): Went to school in Boulder, Colorado. I got my civil engineering degree there. Took me five years, but initially pursuing civil engineering, it wasn't like what I initially went to go do in college, actually, it's just a weird story with that. Not your typical, I chose my degree and then I went and got it sort of a thing. I was in Air Force ROTC my freshman year at college and I was in mechanical engineering and was kind of pursuing that. And my goal was really just to be in the Air Force, be an officer in the Air Force and preferably the technical route of that stuff. So I chose an engineering degree for that and I chose mechanical initially, and I heard that civil was actually the easiest engineering degree. So I was like, alright, let's just switch into that and pursue that instead. So I did that and then because I had asthma as a kid, I got removed from Air Force ROTC after my freshman year. So at that point I was like, do I just restart and just I've wasted a whole year of money on a degree or do I just stick it down and see if I end up liking it or not? So that's what I did.

(03:44): I didn't really like go into college pursuing civil engineering. I just ended up doing it accidentally, but it worked out. It wasn't my first job out of college. My first job out of college was 2D CAD for Spectrum,

(03:56): Which was okay. That was a pre COVID job. That was just a whole bunch of stuff. I did get hired for a civil engineering firm and then eight days in, they thought they got a contract that they were bidding on, so they hired for it. It was a pretty big project, I guess for at and t or something, and then they ended up not getting the project. So after eight days of training, they let everybody go that they just hired. So I got kind of screwed over with that. Yeah, fresh grad. So I just scrambled for a job, ended up getting that COVID hit, and then when we were starting to get brought back into the office after when I was like, all right, so I'm started using my degree and I wanted to move away from Colorado for a little bit. So I started applying for jobs and ended up getting one over in Washington where I'm at now in civil engineering.

(04:44): And that was with small sided site work, like single family homes, short plats, that kind of stuff. Ended up really not liking it. I liked the people I worked with. I wanted to see a different kind of civil engineering. So I ended up switching jobs to another company in Washington, Kirkland where I'm at now at PACE Engineers. And we do, it's municipal work. So I do water main replacement, load station design, that kind of stuff. And I am actually at a point now where I'm really, really happy and content with my degree, coincidental choice. Cool. Actually working in the area you live helping out stuff, infrastructure, getting rebuilt and upgraded, and it gets kind of technical too, so it scratches that itch

Isaac (05:35): And it's important. Water is important, water, wastewater, all of that.

Jared (05:40): Yeah, you got 80-year-old pipes in the ground failing and it's like, we need this permit yesterday, but we have nine of these projects around the city. Your company can take care of this stretch. Here you go. And next thing you know, we have this budget for it and we're just cranking along and it's good.

Isaac (05:58): So I'm curious, as you're going through the degree, does your opinion change what's easiest or hardest or maybe the outlook of what the work was is different too with civil engineering versus mechanical? What has there been any change there in your opinion?

Jared (06:17): I didn't really get to experience it because I switched halfway through my freshman year. I just heard that it was harder. But I have a couple buddies that are actually, they stuck through the mechanical engineering course and they stayed in the Air Force too. But yeah, no civil had hard courses too. I learned that the hard way, getting a D, of course, I'm not a structural guy. Mechanics materials killed me.

Isaac (06:40): Yeah.

Jared (06:42): Yeah, no, we saw, I don't know, did we have to take Thermo? I don't remember.

Isaac (06:48): What was your FE journey? Did you have to do that while you were in school or did you take that after? What was

Jared (06:53): Yeah, we had to do that while we were in school. I guess I just wasn't really understanding what the FE truly was. When it got explained to us, I was told it's something that you should get, but you don't really need it for a job after college. And I was still a little unsure of things, so we had to take it in school, so I just took it and I didn't pass it the first time. I didn't really study or do anything for it. But then when I was out of school and applying for jobs, after I got laid off from the first one, I was like, I need to lock in and get it. So that's when I, it's good

Isaac (07:28): Credential.

Jared (07:29): Yeah, I was like, it's actually required. Who'd have thought?

Isaac (07:33): Well, that's cool, man. So you got that knocked out

Jared (07:37): Was tremendously easier than the PE though. I didn't pay for a study course. I think I just YouTubed it for two weeks and then passed it.

Isaac (07:45): Wow. And how far out of school were you when you took it?

Jared (07:51): I think it was a year.

Isaac (07:52): A year? Okay.

Jared (07:54): It was within the first year out of school, so it was for sure at least six months.

Isaac (07:59): I think. You're probably still pretty fresh from school

Jared (08:02): It was still fresh. Yeah.

Isaac (08:03): That's cool. It

Jared (08:04): Was for sure still fresh.

Isaac (08:06): Okay, so then let's fast forward. You're working in your job. You got a career that you like and then you were like, I need to get the PE, or what was the push to get that?

Jared (08:18): It's just something that I want to do. When you're in civil and you're working underneath PEs and they're the ones running the jobs, it's like I know a few people that have their EITs that don't have their PEs that are mid-career, and then it is just like you end up probably just mostly staying with busy work. You don't really end up doing the PE work, which is the stuff that I want to do. I think the busy stuff, it's all fine to learn and get a hold of projects and you can really get a hold on that. Stormwater design jobs now water main replacement jobs now I can for sure do a lot of the technical busy reports, cost estimate, that kind of stuff, but it's just like 10 years down the road pushing 40 later than that even I see myself just having to be PE.

Isaac (09:14): Yeah, for sure. I mean the PE is kind of the springboard for the rest of your career and definitely a must for sure.

Jared (09:20): Yeah, and I feel like once you get that in civil, it's like you don't really need to do anything else. You don't really need a master's. The way that I look at civil right now is you get your niche, whether that's municipality like water or storm or sewer, and you get really good at that and you start getting experience a few years in this or that you don't need your master's because even if somebody was doing storm their entire career and they got their master's, they want to get do a sewer job, they're not going to get hired over somebody who did three years of sewer somewhere else actually can do the work.

Isaac (09:55): Very true. And I've kind of preached this before, but the PE is definitely more valuable than earning a master's. Earning a master's is more like, Hey, my employer is paying for this and maybe I could get more specialized that would be in this topic, which is a good thing.

Jared (10:13): That's a good point.

(10:15): If an employer pays for it, why not help.

Isaac (10:17): Yeah.

Jared (10:17): You out?

Isaac (10:18): Why not? Okay. You took, I'm assuming, water resources for your PE exam. Yep. Because the world you're in. What was your opinion of taking that exam? What was that experience like for you?

Jared (10:33): BOD? It was review. I got super lucky because that was back in school when I was doing courses. I did an environmental engineering course and it was a lot of the BOD work and a lot of wastewater, water treatment facilities, stuff like that. So I got really lucky that I ended up doing that and not transportation or something else. I didn't do any transportation courses back in college. So studying for this, it was a little bit more review than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be mostly newer topics, but it ended up being a lot of review for me, which worked out. That's really

Isaac (11:09): Good. Well, and it's nice. Water resources is a popular exam. It usually has one of the highest pass rates, which is really cool and only has a few standards, a few codes and standards. So I guess walk us through a little bit. What was your exam experience? Were you worried about theory or alternative item type questions? Was there any surprises that you went through or what tips would you have for someone that's about to go take it?

Jared (11:39): I was worried about curve balls. You can always study something and it's always the thing that you didn't study that you get asked on an exam. And that's just the worst feeling like, oh my God, I spent five hours on this and then I get asked this part of it. I didn't study this part of the formulas. So yeah, no, for me, when I was approaching studying in the first place, my hardest thing is the motivation to get going, of course. And part of that I think comes into where do I start or what do I study? So that's when my company also reimburses up to a thousand dollars for a course if you pass the first time. So that's when I was like, I know it's super nice. So that's when I was like, all right, let's go find a course. I used Google, Gemini and I

Isaac (12:33): Oh, really?

Jared (12:34): Yeah, I used AI and I was just like, find me a few courses that I can do my research on that are well renowned and good study courses because University of Washington used to have a class up here, but they discontinued that a few years ago, so I had to go somewhere else. Most of the PEs in my company used that. So I had look somewhere else and found you guys and

Isaac (12:58): Well, now I'm curious what Gemini says [00:13:00] about us

Jared (13:02): Ask. It was good things. I chose you guys over, I think it was like three total or five total. It was a good price point for what you get. You got the structure of the course, you got your lessons. For me, a big thing is repetition of problems. So with the lectures that you guys had in the lecture, there were several practice problems. And then at the end of the lecture, although you didn't have to do it at the end, but with every single one, you got a bunch of example problems with that. So you ended up, I mean I had the sticky note. I think it was 46 lessons total, and each one had on average six to eight problems total. So you just got reps, several hundreds of problems of just stuff.

Isaac (13:49): Yeah, that's awesome.

Jared (13:50): And it was also nice because the curve balls I was talking about when you're, I think it's you doing the actual talking.

Isaac (13:57): Yep.

Jared (13:58): I can tell the voice. Yeah, it's [00:14:00] good to put the face of the voice. But it was nice that sometimes when you'd be explaining in a section that it's just like, this will probably be a theory question or it's really important to know this part of this problem instead of this part, because we know this gets asked more than other parts. So it's like, okay, I can mentally be whatever for this section, but then really hone in on something else.

Isaac (14:30): I mean, sometimes engineers get bogged down in the details and you're just like, Hey, this is probably just going to be a theory problem on the exam, so don't crush yourself trying to study this too hard. I mean, you want to know what you're doing, but yeah, you

Jared (14:46): Want to know the key concept. But

Isaac (14:48): That kind of stuff I feel like only comes from experience and being in the trenches. So I mean, one of the things I think civil engineering academy, what we try to do is be in the trenches with you. We're practicing engineers that have studied the PE and gone through that experience. So try to make sure you feel comfortable going through it too, and maybe determine where those landmines are that are out there. So was there any other struggles that you had when you were studying? You had motivation stuff. And so the course brought that, I know we got homework planner, we got lectures, it's all kind of laid out. We really tried to streamline giving you just what you need to ace this stuff. Any other struggles that you felt like the course helped you out with?

Jared (15:37): Not particularly. How did you approach? My key thing was the structure. I loved having lessons. I loved knowing it was a percentage thing for me, like a progress tracker. I had a sticky note on the wall and I would get done with one and I'd exit off and I could just see over the course of I just needed to do three a week and this many problems here and I'm on track. So it was a good mental for me to de-stress of knowing as long as I get this done this week, I am making

Isaac (16:08): Progress.

Jared (16:08): Progress. And then when I'm not doing that, and I was several lessons and weeks behind, I'm stressing. I need to catch up.

Isaac (16:18): So what did that look like for you? What was your study schedule? If you were talking to somebody just preparing, what would you say they need to, how much time do you think they need to throw into this? What's my study time looking like per week?

Jared (16:30): Of course, it's going to depend per person. If they sign up for this course, it's going to be probably at least 60 hours, 80 hours just to get through the lessons themselves. I was at pause all the time for the practice problems, but I also had it, I think on 1.25 speed the entire time. So it went by a little bit faster because

Isaac (16:50): I spoke really fast

Jared (16:53): For me. Yeah, it was great. But no, I mean for me, I heard you needed to start early. So I signed up for the test. I had a weird little journey with it. I signed up for the test back in. No, I signed up for your course back in July of last year I think, and August. And I didn't start studying right away. I was pretty sick for a month. I got a really nasty flu and it was just taking me out in August, September, and it really just demotivated me to get going on things. And then I think it was, I don't remember when it was, it was in August, I mean October or November, that's when I officially got everything done through NCES. That takes a little bit longer than I thought. So getting the NCS process done and then signed up for the test, I signed up for it in February and started studying officially with your course in December, end of November because of Thanksgiving.

(18:07): So Thanksgiving time, December, and I was going really hard studying for that, and it got super burnt out just with everything on holidays and then living in Seattle, things were getting dark and I'm just like, kill me. So I ended up taking some time off in the beginning of January, super stressed. Ended up moving the test back a month-ish to March 16th. And then at the end of January, that's when I was like, all right, it's time to just, let's just re-lock in and just get this done. There's no more procrastinating. And it turned into almost an everyday thing for me. So it's like every day work, eight to five, get off work, come home, eat, and at least just sit in front of my computer. And my thing was do [00:19:00] one lesson, maybe it wasn't every day. I ended up, I had to get through four lessons a week starting in February to stay on track. So it ended up being about four lessons a week and I just fit that into my schedule. And then towards the end, I missed some. Of course, I ended up only doing two or three throughout February. So the end of February, those weekends was just cranking. I sit down for eight hours Saturday and Sunday and just go through eight lessons in a day.

Isaac (19:30): [00:19:30] Dang.

Jared (19:31): And did that because I wanted to get done with enough time to kind of decompress from the studying before the actual test.

Isaac (19:39): Great.

Jared (19:39): So it's like I was taking the test on Monday. I wanted to be done with everything and not do a thing on the Sunday beforehand.

(19:46): And I wanted to have done the practice test the weekend before, after having done the entire course. So I did your entire course before. It was because the test was March 16th, I think I got it done on March 8th. I was finished all the lessons, then took the practice test and I got a 67.5 on that.

Isaac (20:09): Was that the PDF downloadable or the CBT simulator?

Jared (20:13): That legit, yeah, go to the website. I wanted the exact practice test. The one that you guys have super handy. Yeah. Got a 67.5 on that. Anything that I didn't feel comfortable or I didn't feel like I really did well on in that I missed, I went and restudied that the week leading up to the exam and then took that Sunday me off and just took it.

Isaac (20:40): That's perfect, man.

(20:42): Well, I'm so happy for you, man. That's just exciting that you're able to knock it out. I think when you're taking practice exams, I think that's a great score to kind of shoot for. Some people kind of get lost in what should I be getting? Should I be getting 90% on this so I can go into the exam and feel comfortable? And I usually tell 'em, no you want to be around 70% and you can still feel confident going into the exam. When you took the exam, did you feel like you went in with some confidence knowing you put in some time and effort and the course helped you get there? Or were you still doubting I don't know what I'm doing?

Jared (21:17): Oh no, I felt fine in my mind. I went through every lesson, every module, I did all the practice problems. I basically had at least seen something I might see on the test. They can always ask something weird in the office or whatever, but I felt fine. I was like, if they asked me something super weird, then whatever, I couldn't have prevented that. They went through the entire lessons and practice problems. That's as much as you can possibly do. So test day, I was relaxed.

Isaac (21:51): You felt good as you can be. Okay, and then you got your results. Walk me through the day, you got your results.

Jared (21:59): Woke up. They came out Eastern time, 8:00 AM Eastern time. So they came out 5:00 AM my time. So I woke up to an email and I was like, alright, open it, check it. Saw the passing, hit the refresh button, saw past again, hit the refresh button one more time. And I texted my parents. I was like, all right, we're good.

Isaac (22:18): I got it done.

Jared (22:19): Yeah, I had a check on my actual laptop. I didn't believe my phone initially, so I had to get to the office and then send some screenshots out to some employees and I was just like, yeah, we did it.

Isaac (22:33): Try. I'm curious. You bring up a good point here, the people that you're texting and stuff, and I think a big part of joining a course is feeling like you're supported in this journey and we try to make sure you feel supported, whether it's answering questions or whatever it is. But what kind of support system did you have outside of the course or even within it?

Jared (22:56): I didn't really use your inside support structure. You guys were really, really understanding with me when I was getting sick at the beginning of that and I wasn't using your course and you extended my course for me. I remember that when I wasn't using it and I am super appreciative. That helped me out so much that just really a bunch of stress and I don't know, help me.

Isaac (23:19): Well, we're flexible. We know that people do have lives.

Jared (23:23): Life happens

Isaac (23:24): And we work with you.

Jared (23:28): Yeah, outside of the course, I mean, coworkers had stuff like study material, like the civil engineering reference manual, something that they used back when they were taking their tests still. I basically just told him, I was like, if it's not going to be something I can use on the test, I don't want to be really using it. I only want to be using something that I can know muscle. If I need to find something on BOD, I don't want to know where it's at in the civil engineering reference manual. I want to know where I found it several times in the reference handbook that we have on the test.

Isaac (24:06): Oh, of course.

Jared (24:07): Yeah. I didn't have any coworkers taking at the same time, somebody's actually taking it in June. I don't know if he signed up for this or not, but then, yeah, I think we had another guy one I what I was talking about this YouTubing for a week and then taking it. I'm like, you're crazy. Alright.

Isaac (24:26): There's always someone that busts out studying for a week and goes, takes it and pass it. And it's like everyone hates him at did it.

Jared (24:34): And I'm like, I don't know how you did that, dude. It's crazy.

Isaac (24:38): Yeah, I mean good for them, but they're kind of the exception to the...

Jared (24:42): The huge exception.

Isaac (24:45): So yeah, it sounds like you put a bunch of months into it, you had a good study schedule, you could come home and knock it out even, and you gave yourself plenty of runway where it's like even though you were sick, you could still get this thing done and knocked out. So that's pretty cool. You did that. It sounds like your coworkers had PE so you had no problems working with your division of professional licensing and getting that. I think some engineers forget that that's the next step after you get your PE. Could you talk about that a little bit and maybe give some advice to people, maybe they're not thinking about what are next steps after getting your PE

Jared (25:23): Career wise?

Isaac (25:24): Yeah, well like passing the exam and then applying with division and professional licensing. Did you already have references that could sign off on work? Did you already build work experience? Were you tracking

Jared (25:37): That? I'm pretty sure that's part of the application process. So I did all of that beforehand. I might've done too much, but I did the references before back in July, August of last year.

Isaac (25:53): Okay.

Jared (25:53): References did the work experience, had them verify that I did the application on Washington State Licensing page. So I did that entire process beforehand. I use Gemini all the time. I have personal profits, I have personal things I'm working on too with it, but it's just like I use it for everything. So it walked me through and I just did it all beforehand and then Great.

(26:22): Yeah, so after I got the PE or after I passed, I completed my application. No, because the test result came in in NCS. So all you have to do at that point is just send your test results to the state. So did that, checked my application that I had with Washington State and it said it was still pending per the PE exam status or whatever. So I sent them an email because I was emailing them beforehand also. She's like, Hey, sent you my email verification. Is there anything else you guys need from me? Did I send it everything over correctly and everything's going to be good? Is everything fine? Do I need to do anything else? They're like, Nope, everything's fine. We submit licenses out the first week or two of the month. So yeah, so I just held my breath and April hit, I think it was four days in, just got an email. I was just like, here you go. Here's your number.

Isaac (27:22): And now that you've got this, what do you think the PE is going to do for your career? Did it have an immediate impact on your workplace? Did you get a raise or what's your opinion about that?

Jared (27:34): Yep, immediate. Well, I got the a thousand dollars reimbursement for the course initially expense, boom, and get a 5K raise at my company. So that hit immediately also. So that's good. But I don't know. I got another one of those things with just kind of feeling lucky going into civil engineering, ended up finding a job that I like, but also one that's kind of becoming more and more sought after. It's a lot of job opportunities

Isaac (28:01): In demand.

Jared (28:03): Not a lot of people to fill the shoes anymore because civil's a pretty high stress job and a lot of people get into it and they're like, I'm out. And now with software engineering being the big thing of the last decade, a lot of the younger people that want to go into engineering, I feel like less have gone into civil. I'm pretty sure the numbers are a little bit lower, and now it's just like there's shoes to fill, so you get to PE and yeah, the O eight housing crisis didn't hire civils for five years for that. So there's just going to be this huge gap of just experience needed.

Isaac (28:35): Very true. Well, it's a good time to be a civil man. You got the PE and that's the springboard to everything, so that's awesome. Hopefully. Well, great tips, great advice. Any last second advice for anyone taking this exam?

Jared (29:00): It was tough, but I feel like with the course and doing all the lessons, the modules, all the reps, the problem reps, and just really understanding everything where it's at on the reference manual, I feel like it's manageable. Just putting the time, put in the time, do all the practice problems you need, and you got it.

Isaac (29:22): Love it. Well, we're excited you are a student of the course. We're so excited that you got this thing knocked out. I mean, if anyone's interested and you need help, definitely come find us to civilpereviewcourse.com, or you can find it at Civil Engineering Academy or go ask Gemini apparently. Right. So, awesome. Well, Jared, thank you for doing this. Appreciate it. And best of luck to you in your future of your career.

Jared (29:50): Appreciate it. Thank you guys.

Isaac (29:52): Okay, see you.

Jared (29:53): See you.