As part of the Cullen College of Engineering's continuing effort to support its students and alumni, members of the Mechanical Engineering Department have successfully restarted a program to offer refresher workshops for Fundamental of Engineering (FE) and Professional Engineer (PE) licensure exams.
The effort has been spearheaded by Farah Hammami Ep Kammoun, Ph.D., an Instructional Assistant Professor, and Christiana Chang, an Instructional Associate Professor, at the direction of Pradeep Sharma, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor & Department Chair.
“The refresher workshop was previously offered by the college of engineering under the supervision of Dr. Stuart A. Long,” Hammami said. “Dr. Sharma and the ME instruction team wanted to bring this workshop back to respond to ME alumni request for FE and PE practice workshops, which was voiced during one of the ME Department Alumni events.”
The series consisted of 10, two-hour refresher workshop sessions, targeted to the content areas designated in the FE and PE licensure exams. The refresher workshops focused on:
- Providing brief reviews of key concepts in each of the FE exam sections.
- Providing brief reviews of key concepts in the Principles section of the PE exam sections.
- Answering common questions within each of the exam sections.
- Summaries of the FE and PE handbook materials and how they can be applied on the exams.
- Sample problems to get attendees back in shape to prepare for the FE and PE exams.
In addition to Chang, Hammami and Sharma, lecturers and organizers included Holley Love, Ph.D., and Xuemei Chen, Ph.D., both Instructional Assistant Professors.
Chang and Hammami said the Fall 2021 semester turnout was good, with about 40 people signing up, including one alum of another university. They said the split was about 50-50, between current students and alumni, with a low price point and online, evening sessions to encouragement enrollment.
“The workshop was offered online in the evening, with recordings that were provided to all participants,” Hammami said. “We have received some feedback from current students that the workshop helped them to understand what to focus on and that helped them to pass their FE exam. In the future, the instructors plan on providing more material, including additional practice problems outside of the workshop lectures.”
The department plans on offering the refresher workshops again, although a determination hasn't been made whether that will be in Summer or Fall 2022. For more information, visit the program's website. Future sessions will also be listed on the department's LinkedIn page.