Celebrating Engineers Week
Take Three: Q&A with Quinton Mann, EI

1. You just passed the PE exam and are now working toward the experience milestones to obtain your PE. What motivated you to take this step in your career? I chose to take this step because I saw it as an important milestone in order to continue to grow as an engineer and take on more responsibilities. Earning my license represents a commitment to learning and advancing my technical skills and abilities as well as a challenge to broaden my knowledge and show the value of the experience I have gained while working here at Building & Earth. My degree is in petroleum engineering and everything I have learned in the Geotechnical Engineering field is from experience working here.

2. What was the most rewarding and challenging part of exam day and how did you prepare? The most challenging part of the exam was the preparation. I worked hard on my preparation leading up to the exam, so on the day of it was mostly keeping my own anxiety in check. I took the School of PE study course for about 6 months leading up to the exam, watching the courses after work and on weekends. After going through the classes I worked on practice problems and exams from School of PE as well as the practice test from NCEES.

I ramped up the number of practice problems and exams I did in the week or two leading up to the exam to be prepared for whatever may show up. The day before the exam I didn’t study at all so that I could give my brain a bit of a break. I took that day to relax and clear my head. At that point I felt like I had learned what I could and any more studying would only overwork my brain and add stress to the exam day.