Mudasir Gulzar’s Journey to Pass the Geotech PE Exam with CEA

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) releases a report on the median pre-tax annual salary of civil engineers every year, using the answers provided by respondents working within the field, from different levels of higher education, and spread out across the various disciplines of the subject. With this in mind, the ASCE just released the 2020 edition of this annual salary report, titled Civil Engineers’ Income and Job Satisfaction Continue to Rise. Today’s episode is a further examination of this report, as well as a list of the highest-paying cities in the US for civil engineers, compiled by the ASCE. According to previous reports, base salaries have been on the rise for some time, increasing by an amount of 4-6% each year since 2017, and this trend continued to happen this year. According to the report, civil engineers' median pre-tax annual salaries in 2019 was $115,000, which is an increase from $109,000 they reported last year. This positive trend of increasing base salaries is a good sign for every engineer out there, and actually, a motivation for everyone to get the PE license. The report stated that civil engineers with a professional engineer license make about $121,000, which is $31,000 higher than the median salary for those civil engineers who do not have any professional license. So, getting a PE license can really help out every engineer in the long run. If you’re serious about taking your career to the next level, The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course is the only course you need to ace that exam. Don’t forget to check it out! When it comes to the list of the best cities to be a civil engineer in the US, based solely on salary, can you guess which countries would be in the top 5? Can you guess how much, on average, practicing civil engineers at these cities are making? Listen to the show to find out! Resources Mentioned ASCE Report - https://www.asce.org/templates/press-release-detail.aspx?id=38963 The Best Places to Be a Civil Engineer (ASCE) - https://news.asce.org/these-are-the-best-places-to-be-a-civil-engineer/ The Ultimate Civil PE Review Course - https://civilpereviewcourse.com/ 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://www.facebook.com/groups/1682344491800869 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

28 Okt 202013min

This is another episode that will certainly empower and motivate many women out there who feel that inner passion for pursuing career positions in areas of expertise that are somewhat still mainly dominated by men. Today, we hear from Melody Gonzalez, a female immigrant from Venezuela, single mother of two kids, who made her way in becoming an engineer despite all the obstacles she faced in life. As an immigrant, she had to deal with all the changes that come with an international relocation, such as environmental and cultural changes, as well as language barriers. Since she came to the US about 15 years ago, she was proficient enough for the day-to-day basic things. However, getting into engineering school requires a more technical vocabulary and good comprehension of such technical terms and texts. The SAT was her first obstacle. After daily 12-hour study periods, she finally got into Miami Dade College, and from there, later transferred to the Florida International University (FIU). Melody is now a civil engineer for Black & Veatch, proudly working on projects that focus on water resources and infrastructure, as well as sustainable solutions for the community. One of her main pieces of advice for the generations of civil engineers to come is to love what you do, especially if it’s civil engineering. Getting through school is hard, and it doesn't get easier when you start working. That’s why working with what you love, at a company that is in alignment with your values, and alongside people that will serve as mutual mentors to each other, both professionally and personally, is the key. This conversation is a great source of inspiration not only for women but also for men. As the “dominant” genre in the area, they have the moral responsibility to help the female percentage in the field grow. Melody is a great example that obstacles are just temporary problems that require you to change in order to overcome them, but that will certainly take you to the next level as a professional and a person. Don’t forget to check out her article telling her journey in a more in-depth, detailed, and personal manner that will certainly contribute to your perspective of life. Resources Mentioned Melody Gonzalez’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/melody-a-gonzalez?trk=author_mini-profile_title Melody Gonzalez’s Instagram (@melodygonzfiu) - https://www.instagram.com/melodygonzfiu/?hl=en Melody Gonzalez’s Article “How I went from a Single Mom to an Engineer: Living the American dream.” - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-went-from-single-mom-engineer-living-american-gonzalez-e-i-/?trackingId=m1%2FqKgHkSeOXGm7Vj6mLyA%3D%3D Black & Veatch - https://www.bv.com/ Florida International University (FIU) - https://www.fiu.edu/ Miami Dade College - https://www.mdc.edu/ 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://www.facebook.com/groups/1682344491800869 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

21 Okt 202040min

Today’s episode is a really special one because it not only emphasizes the importance of having higher percentages of women in engineering classes and in the industry as a whole, but it also brings up the discussion of how civil engineering of the future may look like from sustainability and even space exploration (hello, Mars!) standpoint. Today’s guest is Hannah Copeman, an amazing female engineer to join the ever-growing group of women in engineering, who got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Toronto, Canada, emphasizing on Structural Engineering. She talks about how she got into engineering in the first place, and why she decided to pursue her higher education in a different country. She also dives deeper into the aspects of being a female engineering student and how this played out during her undergraduate and graduate studies, as well as some personal obstacles she had to overcome, especially in the first two years of her undergrad. Hannah is currently working for an organization, called One Community, that focuses on building sustainable cities, specifically tackling the infrastructure industry, which accounts for more than 70% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. She’s in the civil structural team, so she oversees and helps design the lancet-arch-shaped, self-sufficient residence built out of aircrete. Hannah is now in the process of studying for her FE exam, and she shares some tips and habits she has used in order to keep herself motivated and productive that may help literally any undergrad, grad, or young engineer out there. Nevertheless, she dives a bit into how the current space exploration and the development in the industry may allow civil engineers to work on projects to be built on Mars, using totally different technologies and techniques, but also taking advantage of some peculiarities of the once thought “uninhabitable” environment. This is a fun and interesting conversation to listen to, which will certainly add a lot of value. It will allow you to get a lot of insights about the future of the field from a young and visionary engineer’s perspective, both when it comes to the necessity of becoming sustainable due to global warming and to the ground-breaking discoveries in planetary surface construction. Resources Mentioned (some links are affiliate links) Hannah Copeman’s LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-copeman University of Toronto, Canadá - https://www.utoronto.ca Manhattan College -https://manhattan.edu Thornton Tomasetti - https://www.thorntontomasetti.com One Community - https://www.onecommunityglobal.org Who Moved My Cheese, by Spencer Jhonson - Here Bjarke Ingels Group - https://big.dk/#projects 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://www.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/newsletter

13 Okt 202032min

Civil engineering is definitely among those industries that have been impacted the most by COVID-19. What’s worse, not only licensed engineers have been hit by the side effects of COVID, but also those who were preparing for the PE exam. Exams got canceled, people started losing hope and motivation, refunds were requested, there was worry about the safety of test centers in future exams, etc. Complete chaos? Not at all. On today’s show, we hear directly from within the NCEES organization about how they are navigating our current situation and the measures they are taking in order to provide exams for everyone who wants to take them. Today, Isaac talks to Timothy Miller, the Chief Officer of Examinations at the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). He oversees the development and scoring of all engineering and surveying examinations used for professional licensure in the United States and its territories. Miller also oversees the production of NCEES examinations, study guides, and exam administration publications, as well as compliance and security. Miller is a licensed professional engineer in the State of South Carolina, getting his degree from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, who had worked for more than 20 years as an engineering consultant and project manager before joining the organization. They touch on a variety of interesting topics, including questions that most examinees are really interested in, such as how the exams are made, and why there are more questions for certain disciplines than others. They also discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and adaptations of the computer-based test (CBT), when the NCEES plans on completing the transition from the old “pencil and paper” model to CBT, as well as the role the organization plays in preventing the threats to licensure. Resources Mentioned (some links are affiliate links) NCEES - https://ncees.org NCEES Records Program - https://ncees.org/records NCEES Squared - https://ncees.org/about/publications/past-annual-reports-squared NCEES State Requirements - https://ncees.org/state-links National Society of Professional Engineers - https://www.nspe.org American Society of Civil Engineers - https://www.asce.org Pearson Vue - https://home.pearsonvue.com Built To Last, by Jim Collins - Here Virginia Polytechnic Institute - https://vt.edu 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://www.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

6 Okt 202051min

On today’s episode, Isaac has an intriguing and inspiring conversation with Fernando Ceballos about the hurdles he faced in his personal and professional lives, from being a kid with divorced parents and losing his dad while still in college to how being dyslexic affected him and his preparation for the PE exam. He is a guy with humble and troubled beginnings who has thrived professionally and is now helping others overcome their own challenges. Fernando is a project engineer for Pape-Dawson Engineers, a statewide firm in Texas, working with multifamily, commercial and industrial land development, while also co-hosting the Dealing With Life Stuff podcast, which aims at young professionals and college students, trying to help them in the process of figuring out what the next steps in their lives are. The podcast is focused on career and life, and it teaches how young professionals, the millennials, can navigate through life knowing that it’s going to be hard, but they are perfectly capable of getting through and succeeding at it. As a career coach himself, Fernando goes through the importance of mentorship in many different areas of life, and mentions the different ways he has already used to improve himself as a person and as an engineer. He also provides advice for both those who may be in the same clinical situation as him, having to deal with the hurdles posed by dyslexia, and those who may have to face other types of obstacles. We all know they come in all forms and shapes. This is an inspiring story for literally anyone and it will certainly provide you with a spark of motivation to do whatever it is that you want to do despite the obstacles, and it will also give you a ton of resources to look into in order to keep developing yourself and learning. Resources Mentioned (some links are affiliate links) Fernando Ceballos Website - www.fdoceballos.com Fernando Ceballos LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/fdoceballos Fernando Ceballos Instagram / Twitter - @fdoceballos Fernando Ceballos Youtube Channel - www.youtube.com/c/fdoceballos/featured Dealing With Life Stuff Podcast - www.dealingwithlifestuff.com The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz - Here The Magic of Thinking Big, by David J. Schwartz - Here The Dichotomy of Leadership, by Jocko Willink - Here Extreme Ownership, by Jocko Willink - Here The Jocko Podcast - jockopodcast.com Simon Sinek - simonsinek.com Civil Engineering Academy - If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base CEA Community – Haven’t joined up on our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! CEA Newsletter - 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! Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

30 Sep 202028min

On today’s show, we hear from two international engineers, Noah and Mostafa, about how they got into the field, their journeys, the paths they needed to go through in order to become licensed professionals in their respective countries (and how it differs from the US), as well as their experiences in the civil engineering arena, and their favorite projects they have worked on themselves. Mostafa is a Ph.D. with over 15 years of experience in the profession, who has worked on high-level projects in countries including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Canada. Just after getting his Bachelor’s degree in Egypt, he had the opportunity to work in Dubai, which provided him with the first-hand experience of what goes into the construction of huge and massive buildings. Noah is a professional engineer in Manitoba, Canada, with over 8 years of experience working in many different projects within the structural engineering discipline, from renovations and structural design to condition assessments and additions to existing buildings. Noah and Mostafa are the founders of Structural Engineering Basics, an online platform that focuses on teaching the basics of structural engineering to those who are not structural engineers but deals with the subject almost on a daily basis, such as students about to graduate, contractors, project managers, architects, and building owners. Check the link below and start learning structural engineering today! Resources Mentioned (some links are affiliate links) Structural Engineering Basics - structuralengineeringbasics.com/cea Structural Engineering Basics (Contact) - info@structuralengineeringbasics.com Civil Engineering Academy - civilengineeringacademy.com CEA Community – Haven’t joined up on our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! ceacommunity.com CEA Newsletter - 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! - civilengineeringacademy.com/newsletter Isaac Oakeson - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

23 Sep 202047min

Since COVID-19 hit earlier this year, we haven’t really been able to discuss other topics. And even if we do, COVID-related procedures and measures are always part of the debate. It has disrupted all kinds of markets and has changed all different aspects of social and professional life. The civil engineering arena, which relies heavily on workers performing tasks on-site and meeting deadlines, was also considerably disrupted by COVID. On today’s show, Mark Oakeson, who has been experiencing this ‘new normal’ by himself, sits down to discuss with Isaac how the novel coronavirus has impacted construction sites, from safety protocols to disease-testing procedures. When the virus first hit back in early March 2020, we had no clue about how bad this pandemic would be, or even if it would, in fact, achieve the frightening high records we’ve seen so far. As the disease started developing from March on, many engineering projects were put on hold not only in the USA but all around the world. This brought the field to a nearly complete halt. As we’ve gone through the summer, this fear started to slowly mitigate with all the safety procedures and standard operations provided by OSHA and the CDC. Therefore, even though things don’t yet feel under control, they are certainly more manageable now, which provides a favorable ground for engineers to safely start their projects back up, with all these new procedures in mind. Isaac and Mark dive deep into the nuances of the disruption in the civil engineering field caused by the novel coronavirus, what the new standard procedures look like and how they play out in the field, how they handle social distancing and other COVID-related safety measures on construction sites, what happens whenever someone contracts the virus, the many different responses to the virus, and many more. Tune in to know more about how the construction arena is handling this ‘new normal’. Resources Mentioned Mark Oakeson - mark@civilengineeringacademy.com Isaac Oakeson - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com Engineering News-Record - ENR Duke University study - Low-Cost Measurement of Face Mask Efficacy for Filtering Expelled Droplets During Speech ENR’s article about the study - Study Claims Popular Face Covering Could Worsen Virus Spread CDC - Website OSHA - Website Civil Engineering Academy - If you need exams, solved problems, or courses, make sure to check out our home base CEA Community – Haven’t joined up on our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! CEA Newsletter - 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!

16 Sep 202026min

Powered by social movements all over the world, women are getting more and more space, visibility, and respect within areas of expertise that were mainly dominated by men some time ago, such as natural sciences and engineering. Today Melissa dives a bit into women in the engineering field and some things she's had to deal with. Melissa and Isaac also dive into the details of her life as a mother and an engineer, how she deals with her work-life balance, especially now with COVID and the work-from-home culture, her experiences as a woman in the field, her workload in her transportation industry, and many tips for the aspiring engineer of the future. Listen to the full episode and enjoy this inspirational story. Melissa is a senior consultant engineer for the roadway-highway team, and a local project operations manager at WSP in Orange County, California. This means she is the project manager for the majority of the large projects they handle, and she also helps other PMs manage the business side of projects. Resources Mentioned Melissa Brady - LinkedIn WSP - Website UDOT - Website/ Mountainview Corridor WTS - Website NSCE - Website Melissa’s Book Recommendations - PMBOK / Working Towards The PMP Chloe, The Engineer - @chloetheengineer Civil Engineering Academy - If you need exams, solved problems or courses, make sure to check out our home base CEA Community – Haven’t joined up on our free community? What’s wrong with you? J/K. Ok, just go there and join a group of like-minded civil engineers! CEA Newsletter - 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! Reach out to Isaac - isaac@civilengineeringacademy.com

8 Sep 202036min