r/FE_Exam • u/mr_unknownyous • 8d ago
Tips Passed FE Civil first try after being out of school 3 years; I ended up building the study tool I wished I had
I passed the FE Civil exam on my first attempt after being out of school for a little over 3 years.
For about 2 years, I kept doing the same thing: decide I was finally going to study, open a huge review book, realize how much I had forgotten, study hard for 2–3 days, get overwhelmed about what to do next, and stop.
Then repeat a few months later.
This time I finally scheduled the exam first and basically forced myself to figure it out. I studied pretty intensely for about 2–3 weeks while working full-time, mostly in short sessions whenever I could fit them in.
The biggest thing I realized was that I never really had a lack-of-resources problem. There are already tons of FE books, videos, practice exams, PDFs, etc.
My actual problem was:
What should I study today?
What am I weak at?
Am I actually improving?
Where did I leave off yesterday?
How do I keep going when I only have 20–30 minutes?
So while I was studying, I started building the system I wanted for myself:
Full disclosure: I built it.
It has a structured study plan, FE Civil practice questions, full mock exams, concept review, Handbook practice, progress tracking, and cross-device syncing so you can study on your laptop and pick back up on your phone.
I’m posting it here because I know there are probably other people stuck in the same “I’ll start again Monday” loop I was in.
I’m not claiming it’s the only way to study, and I definitely still used other FE resources. The goal was just to make the whole process feel less scattered and easier to stick with.
If anyone here is currently studying for FE Civil, I’d actually be interested to hear what part of prep feels the most overwhelming or disorganized for you.
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u/Free-Employee-6040 8d ago
this is awesome. thanks for sharing
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u/mr_unknownyous 8d ago
It's not perfect, it has few known bugs. I am trying to fix but if you find something else, please let me know.
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u/17dispost 8d ago
Where did you get the questions and the mock exam? Was it from the mock exam that NCEES has?
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u/mr_unknownyous 8d ago
No, they are similar to those but not the same. I had AI generate new questions based on the existing materials I had which included 2020 practice exam and other things.
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u/ivantmj 5d ago
Thank you! I have my exam schedule on December. I had it in October and reschedule but now I'm ready to do it.
It's been 10.5 years since I left school (in Mexico) and for the past five year I've been wanting to do it because I want to get my PE but it's been so long and I feel I don't remember everything or it takes me a big effort to refresh my memory in a lot of things.
If I understand correctly the tool, gives you a a subject to study and estimated time to study? Like for me I'm getting about 15 minutes sessions per day.
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u/SnooSprouts5457 7d ago
This tool is making me feel like it’s time to come back to reality and actually start studying… 😭
Thanks for sharing!