The Civil Engineering Academy Podcast

Today is not a normal episode of the Civil Engineering Academy Podcast. Whether you’re getting ready for your Geotech Depth Exam on the PE or the California Seismic Exam, this audio version of our last live workshop will make you feel guilty if you haven’t participated in it. Seriously. Isaac and Mark walk us through some seismic, geotech, and deep foundation materials, explaining some key concepts that will most likely be tested on the PE and California Seismic exams, both as theoretical and problem-solving types of questions. In addition, they lay out the resources we can use to prepare for these exams and how to approach each type of question, as well as solving real questions, step by step, which will be valuable for all of us getting ready for the next PE Exam regardless of our depth exam choice. Resources (some links are affiliate links) KiwiCo - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/kiwi School of PE - http://www.civilengineeringacademy.com/sope The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course - https://civilpereviewcourse.com The Ultimate Civil FE Review Course - https://civilfereviewcourse.com Live Workshop on 4.11.21 (Seismic and Deep Foundation Topics) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUBE77mRjYU&t=292s Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Check out our Youtube Channel to watch videos on how to solve real problems, more of our live workshops, and much more! - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPeFLBZ2gk0uO5M9uE2zj0Q If you need exams, solved problems or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com Reach out to Mark - mark@civilengineeringacademy.com

We all choose our career paths based on our younger self’s dreams and expectations of what we might be able to do and work on someday in the future. Whether we thought we would design and build the next Burj Khalifa or get rich off an extremely high salary right after getting our first job out of college, the truth is that, even though we can still accomplish such things, we have to be mindful of how we go for it. In today’s episode, Mark Oakeson jumps back on the show to discuss the expectations most of us may have of the civil engineering world as well as how it realistically works. By drawing on their own experiences within the field and their early days as civil engineers just fresh out of college, Isaac, and Mark talk about the many aspects we got wrong, and the ones we got right when we imagined ourselves as civil engineers even before going to college. Do engineers really make that much money, even those just starting out? Is your project built exactly as your artistically created Revit model? Is the size of the projects you work on more important than the number of projects you take part in? Tune in to learn about this and much more! Resources (some links are affiliate links!) KiwiCo - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/kiwi PPI is our partner to help you ace your FE and PE exams. Use our discount code of CIVACand our link to get 15% off of any book you order - http://www.civilengineeringacademy.com/ppi American Concrete Institute (ACI) - https://www.concrete.org The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course - https://civilpereviewcourse.com The Ultimate Civil FE Review Course - https://civilfereviewcourse.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Civil Engineering Academy’s Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPeFLBZ2gk0uO5M9uE2zj0Q If you need exams, solved problems or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

Throughout our lives, we’re always trying to overcome the hurdles of reaching the next level, whether it’s going from junior to senior in college, getting the PE license after passing the FE, or even going from one job position to the next. The real challenge, however, lies in how we frame the situations we need to go through in order to reach such a new level and not really the situations themselves. That’s called the Super Mario Effect. First mentioned by the Youtuber Mark Rober during his widely famous TEDx Talk, the Super Mario Effect basically says that we should keep our focus on saving the princess (our ultimate goal) instead of the traps and pits that can hold us back and force us to try again. In his experiment for this talk, Mark found out that the group of people who were not penalized for their failures and were in fact inspired to keep trying despite their shortcomings showed a 16% higher pass rate when compared to the group of people who got penalized for every failure they made. By elaborating on this and explaining why we should see failure in a completely different light, Isaac presents the tips we can use to make the journey of studying for the FE and PE exams not only a fun experience but also a process with a rewarding and steep learning curve. Resources (some links are affiliate links) KiwiCo - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/kiwi Built Bar - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/built The Super Mario Effect: Tricking Your Brain into Learning More (TEDx Talk by Mark Rober) - https://www.ted.com/talks/mark_rober_the_super_mario_effect_tricking_your_brain_into_learning_more Mark Rober’s Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkRober/featured The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course - http://civilpereviewcourse.com The Ultimate Civil FE Review Course - https://civilfereviewcourse.com If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Civil Engineering Academy’s Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPeFLBZ2gk0uO5M9uE2zj0Q Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

As engineers with an analytical science-based background, we tend to rely a lot on what the numbers tell us about something. Therefore, the statistics on the Civil PE Exam give us a hint on which depth exam can be considered the easiest one to take and pass. Today, however, Isaac combines his years of experience as a test taker himself and as an instructor to those seeking their PE license to dissect these numbers and the amount of work each exam requires. By mentioning the specs required by the NCEES for each of the five exams and taking into account not only their pass rates and a number of test-takers but also the preparation time each of them requires from us, Isaac ranks, based on his own opinions and experience, which exam he thinks is the “easiest” one --- if there’s such a thing as an easy exam. The number of standards we need to know change from exam to exam, as well as the number of topics we need to cover in order to be ready for each one. Therefore, even though “easy” may not be the perfect word, some of the exams require a bit less than others. If you’ll soon be a first-time test taker and are not sure which depth exam to choose, this episode will get you covered. In addition to laying out all this information based on statistics and personal experience, you’ll get two pieces of advice in case you don’t know how to choose which depth exam you should go for! Resources (some links are affiliate links) PPI is our partner to help you ace your FE and PE exams. Use our discount code of CIVACand our link to get 15% off of any book you order. - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/ppi Built Bar - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/built CEA Episode 51 (Tim Miller - NCEES) - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/cea-51-the-ncees-chief-officer-of-exams-tim-miller-pe Civil PE Exam Statistics by NCEES - https://ncees.org/engineering/pe/pass-rates ASCE 7 (Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures) - https://www.asce.org/asce-7 OSHA Technical Manual (OTM) - https://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

The five main branches of civil engineering are widely recognized by most of us who choose a career in the field. We begin to develop an interest in one of such branches during the early college years after taking more specific classes or attending presentations of companies within this branch. Today, however, Isaac reveals how a particular presentation got him into an area that few people know of as a potential branch they can get into: The Transmission World! Transmission engineers are those who combine the knowledge from different fields, such as civil and electrical engineering, and apply it to the planning and design of new routes of high-voltage power lines for delivering energy from sources to buildings and public spaces. By mentioning the different tasks to be completed once we’re assigned a project, from field surveying to power line design on PLS-CADD to drilling the poles’ foundations, Isaac details what a day in the life of a transmission engineer looks like — something he’s been involved with for the past 12 years! As a transmission engineer, we can not apply civil engineering concepts to ensure the correct design and construction of the power lines’ foundations and structures, but we can also learn a lot from interacting with many different departments, from crew members building the project on the field to electrical engineers designing a substation. This is a must-listen for everyone since it lays out the many opportunities that can be found in between the common five branches everybody is used to. Resources (some links are affiliate links) Purple Mattress - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/purple PPI is our partner to help you ace your FE and PE exams. Use our discount code of CIVACand our link to get 15% off of any book you order. - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/built Electrical Consultants Inc. (ECI) - https://eciusa.com The University of Utah - https://www.utah.edu PLS-CADD by Power Line Systems - https://www.powerlinesystems.com/plscadd National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) - https://standards.ieee.org/products-services/nesc/index.html If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

Almost every single one of us has already faced a period in life in which we were completely stressed out, whether it was due to exams we were about to take, personal life issues, or even the combination of these two. Dealing with all this can, and certainly will be challenging. Today’s guest, however, provides the best approaches to weather the storms of life. Dr. Laura Jaget is a retired chiropractor that has a 28-year of experience under the belt who created the How To Life brand, a podcast and Youtube channel geared toward helping, guiding, and encouraging younger, newer adults to maneuver through adulthood more easily. Or, since the term has already caught on, it helps to take the fear out of “adulting”! Dr. LJ has been a nationally ranked NCAA Division I tennis player, a chiropractor, a business owner, a wife, a mother of four children, a healer, a teacher, has dabbled in boxing, marksmanship, ballroom dancing, and most recently, playing senior pro pickleball. How to Life provides people with the approaches they can use to combine all these aspects of life without getting stressed out. By laying out some techniques we can use to “reset” while preparing and taking an exam, uncovering the myth of energy drinks to boost productivity, and explaining the importance of Power Naps, as she calls them, Dr. LJ gives insights that will help everyone with all different aspects of life. Resources (some links are affiliate links!) Dr. Laura Jaget Email / LinkedIn - drlj@howtolife.com / https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-laura-jaget-161034b How To Life Website / Youtube Channel / Instagram - https://howtolife.com / https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfaJzijdFNDLS-Fp9WBirYQ / @howtolifenow Built Bar - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/built PPI is our partner to help you ace your FE and PE exams. Use our discount code of CIVACand our link to get 15% off in any book you order - http://www.civilengineeringacademy.com/ppi School of PE - http://www.civilengineeringacademy.com/sope Civil PE Review Course - https://civilpereviewcourse.com Civil FE Review Course - https://civilfereviewcourse.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter If you need exams, solved problems or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

Whether we were studying for final exams in college, putting in the daily effort to prepare for the FE or PE exam, or trying to get any sort of task done at work, we’ve all faced the challenge of trying to focus but simply not being able to. Maybe it’s a coworker or a classmate that asks for something, maybe it's the phone that keeps ringing, or maybe it’s as simple as our cell phone staring at us. Today, Mark jumps back on to address this exact challenge and how to develop the skills to handle it. In order to be effective, we need to focus and get things done. However, that’s not how it actually works in practice. Even though we all have deadlines to meet and only a handful of really important things to tackle, the world keeps going, and other things that may not be as important also pop up and require our attention. On the other hand, we may need to focus on a particular task but, instead of being interrupted, we simply can’t get other things out of our head, which negatively affects our results with the task at hand. Learning how to get into a state of mind in which we can simply block everything out and focus on what we’re doing is essential. By elaborating on this concept and further discussing topics such as how to handle multiple projects, how to pick what’s a priority or not, how to allocate time to do high-priority tasks, and how to fully pay attention to the task at hand, Isaac and Mark provide the tools and techniques we can use to handle such situations. Resources (some links are affiliate links!) KiwiCo - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/kiwi Built Bar - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/built Deep Work, by Cal Newport - https://amzn.to/2Pl5KHX The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey - https://amzn.to/3bP2Rqx Civil PE Review Course - https://civilpereviewcourse.com Civil FE Review Course - https://civilfereviewcourse.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

We all know the PE license opens doors to a variety of possibilities in our careers, which also have their own indirect benefits in our personal lives. While we may decide to take the PE exam with an eye on its future benefits, most of us struggle with the basics: How much time do I need to put in every day? How should I organize my study time? And how many months before exam day should I start preparing for it? In today’s episode, Isaac addresses these common concerns and provides guidelines and tools that you can follow and use in order to make sure your first step towards your PE license is not a misstep. Although the answers to the questions above may vary depending on what stage you’re at in your career and the nature of the work you do, he covers the golden basic rule we should all go for: focus on 3-4 months of preparation, putting in 250-350+ hours of theory and practice problems. This rule will be like a compass guiding you in the right direction, but you don’t need to stop there. Joining a course, like the Ultimate Civil PE Review Course, can really put you ahead of the game by providing you with the exact topics you’ll be tested on the exam while also giving you access to tons of practice problems, a community of like-minded people going through the same process in which you can share your struggles and help other with theirs, as well as expert help from CEA team members. If you’re starting to prepare for your exam, this is a must-listen episode. Resources (Some links are affiliate links!) The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course - https://civilpereviewcourse.com PE Starter Toolkit - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/breadth Visit our Youtube channel to find free video problems and book reviews - https://www.youtube.com/c/CivlEngAcademy If you need any of PPI’s books, use our discount code of CIVAC, and you can get 15% off any book that you order there - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/ppi School of PE - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/sope Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

Becoming a professional engineer is a difficult task at any point in time, regardless of where we were born or live. However, challenges become even greater when we choose to pursue a career in a different country. Not only are the language and culture adoption barriers to overcome, but the way things work out in the new place can also be intimidating. Today, our guest explains how she managed to overcome all of these. Daughter of two engineers and sister of talented siblings ranging from engineers and doctors, Martha Castellon was born and raised in Honduras. Needless to say, she grew up surrounded by engineering conversations and soon realized she was good at math and physics. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in Honduras, she could not find a job there and, following her parents’ advice, she decided to learn English and come to the US to get a master’s degree. Being an international student, however, required her to find a job within three months upon completing her graduate studies. Otherwise, she would have to leave. Today, Martha shares the troubles she’s been through while on the job hunt in the US, how volunteering (you read it right!) helped her land a position as a road design engineer, how the language barriers caused her to take the FE more than once, and how the Ultimate Civil FE Review Course helped her in her goal of passing this exam. She also shares some tips for those preparing to take the test, how planning ahead can greatly improve your odds, as well as how the CEA community and team members along with tons of practice problems helped her prepare, take, and pass her FE exam. Resources Mentioned (some links are affiliate links!) Martha Castellon - martha_castellon@hotmail.com Getting from College to Career, by Lindsey Pollak - https://amzn.to/2Zgf9Cy CEA Episode 49 (International Professional Engineers Noah and Mostafa) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhSPXSU5t9M Oklahoma State University - https://go.okstate.edu The Ultimate Civil FE Review Course - https://civilfereviewcourse.com If you’re a civil engineer, Autodesk offers a suite of software that you’ll definitely be going to be using - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/autodesk If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

We’ve already touched on many cases of people passing the PE exam later in life, as well as on the temporary and uncomfortable conditions we may face in order to achieve something better down the road. Today’s guest is an example of both. After dealing with medical issues that caused a 75% loss of kidney function and being almost 20 years away from the civil engineering arena, Shannon Beranek can proudly say she’s a PE. Shannon Beranek is currently one of the two engineers for the city of Urbana, after going to college to get her bachelor's, master's, and an ABD on a Ph.D. course. While she was doing her master’s, she had a massive attack on her kidneys due to an auto-immune disease called Lupus that got her kidney functionality down to 25%. After some medical treatment, she found herself in a delicate financial situation and decided to leave civil engineering for areas where we're able to pay more. However, her experiences in other industries didn’t get her the life she wanted and, all of a sudden, she decided to go back into civil. Having taken the FE exam in 2001 — only 19 years away — she reasoned she needed a refresher course for the PE. That’s when she found the Ultimate Civil PE Review Course, by the Civil Engineering Academy. In today’s episode, Shannon shares her life experiences, golden tips for test-takers, how the course helped her pass her exam, and also her thoughts on the PE going CBT. Resources Mentioned (some links are affiliate links!) Shannon Beranek - slberanek@urbanaillinois.us The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course - http://civilpereviewcourse.com Civil Engineering PE All-in-One Exam Guide: Breadth and Depth - https://amzn.to/3oA1j7Y Civil Engineering PE Practice Exams: Breadth and Depth - https://amzn.to/3r6NNKR School of PE - http://www.civilengineeringacademy.com/sope PPI is our partner to help you ace your FE and PE exams. Use our discount code of CIVAC and our link to get 15% off any book you order, including the Civil Engineering Reference Manual and the Highway Capacity Manual - http://www.civilengineeringacademy.com/ppi CEA Episode 51 (Tim Miller - NCEES) - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/cea-51-the-ncees-chief-officer-of-exams-tim-miller-pe KiwiCo - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/kiwi Purple Mattress - http://civilengineeringacademy.com/purple If you need exams, solved problems or courses, make sure to check out our home base - https://civilengineeringacademy.com Haven’t joined up in our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! - https://ceacommunity.com Join over 4000 engineers like you and learn the tips and tricks to passing the FE and PE. We even have a free resource for you! - https://civilengineeringacademy.com/join-our-newsletter Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com