The FE Exam is basically a measure of your competency to enter engineering as a profession. It assesses your college education. Many employers will not hire a recent graduate who has not yet taken the FE Exam.

Please note that if you are interested in becoming a surveying engineer, you would take the FS Exam rather than the FE Exam.

It is possible to waive the requirement to take the FE Exam if you are an engineer with an advanced degree (Ph.D.) or decades of work experience.

The FE Exam is 8 hours in length and is entirely multiple-choice. You will have two sessions of 4 hours each, one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. The exam is closed book, but you will have access to limited reference material.

During the exam, you may not bring in cell phones or pagers. Only calculators specified by National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), the entity that governs the engineering licensure exams, may be used during the examination.

You must score a 70 or above to pass the FE Exam. After the successful completion of the FE Exam, you will need to gain at least 4 years of qualified engineering experience after which then you will take the Principles and Practice of Engineering Exam (PE Exam).

The PE exam delves into engineering details you would gain from real-world experience and is the last major step for becoming a licensed engineer.