FEATURED TESTIMONIAL – Best Schedule, Study Material, and Strategies for Civil PE Exam

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“I have been out of college for fifteen years and I knew that without any proper schedule and enough commitment, I would not be successful on the exam. I talked to a friend of mine who is a mechanical engineer and passed the exam recently and he introduced me Dr. Tom’s Classroom. After reviewing other available material and courses, I realized that Dr. Tom’s 20-week PE Review Course is the right choice for me.

I passed the Civil Geotechnical PE exam on my first try, and I attribute this to Dr. Tom’s Classroom for providing the best schedule, study material, and strategies and also introducing a great team of instructors. I would highly recommend his classes to anyone who is planning on taking their PE exam.” – Dadbeh Dowlatshahi, P.E., Houston, Texas

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The Hudson Yards’ Creative Structural Platform

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Recently, my alma mater, North Carolina State University, hosted the annual Paul Zia lecture, a distinguished structural engineering annual lecture series to highlight exceptional projects and their designers.

Thornton Thomasetti presented on the Hudson Yards project in New York City. The premise of this project is fascinating because it involves development of the actual air space above the existing Long Island Rail Road, which is an active rail yard on the west side of Manhattan. The rail yard has nearly no buildable land space so a concept was devised to build a structural platform over the existing active rail tracks where drilled shafts were installed into bedrock between the rail tracks in the very limited space available such that the rail yard would still be operable.

I had an opportunity to visit the new mall development in the Hudson Yards development, and it’s a beautiful space in New York that nicely disguises a portion of the active rail yard. Engineers love to design structural elements that are nicely laid out in a uniform grid pattern because it simplifies our calculations, but given that the deep foundations had to be installed only in available space between rail tracks it truly took some creativity to design this structural platform. – Mike Batten, DTC Civil Geotechnical Instructor

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Pay-As-You-Go and Start for Only $50

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With our Pay-As-You-Go option, you can now try out our courses for only $50, before you buy the remaining course modules. We’re so sure you’ll like what you see that there’s no obligation beyond your initial purchase. Just buy the next course module when you’re ready for it – a nice way to spread out the cost.

“Just finished the intro and it was great! I was skeptical about subscribing to anything and was planning on tackling it solo, but but I’m certainly going to subscribe to Dr. Tom’s now.” – New DTC Participant

At DTC, we realize that the uncertainty of these times makes embarking on preparation for the PE Exam even more daunting than usual. That’s why we’ve committed to these flexible payment options. We want to make it as stress free and affordable as possible for you to get started on your way to becoming a PE.

We are all in this together, and we hope these flexible payment options will be helpful. Please stay safe out there!

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Busy as a Bee, Beaver, Bird…

by DTC Blog

A delightful new ASME video, Nature’s Best Engineering Animals, highlights some of the world’s “animal” engineers. In the opening scene shows a typical beaver dam, beavers being one of the most determined of the animal kingdom’s engineers. 

Here at the farm, I must be ever vigilant to foil beavers from damming up the spillway that keeps our pond at its proper level.  One night of carelessness in our beaver deterrence system, and there will be the start of a major dam in front of the spillway that will take many times an hour to clear. 

Beavers are so industrious that the last photo in the video states that the longest recorded beaver dam is in Alberta, Canada and is almost 2,800 miles long. The video also talks about 3,000 year-old termite mounts and bird nests that hold up to 400 birds.
 
I invite you to watch this video and be amazed at what nature’s engineers have been building long before humans got into the engineering game. – Dr. Tom

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NCEES Moves Up Civil PE Exam Conversion to CBT to 2022

by DTC Blog

NCEES is moving up the date for the conversion of the Civil PE Exam to computer-based testing (CBT), beginning April 1, 2022. That means the last exam to be offered in pencil-and-paper format will be the October 2021 Exam. 

This conversion was originally scheduled to happen in 2023, but NCEES fast-tracked the change in response to COVID-19. According to NCEES Chief Officer of Examinations Tim Miller, P.E., “Under the current COVID-19 guidelines, fewer examinees can be in the exam room at the same time, so we began discussions with Pearson VUE about transitioning the PE Civil exam from 2023 to an earlier date.” With the CBT format you can make an appointment year-round at a testing center. Registration for the CBT Civil exam will open on November 1, 2021.

This change in the testing method has huge consequences for anyone taking a Civil PE exam. To help you understand how this will affect you, Dr. Tom has outlined the implications of the CBT exam in his Change Is Coming article on the DTC Website.
 
Here’s the bottom line up front – Civil Engineers, take the Pencil-and-Paper exam before it’s too late.

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Lumber Shortage Drives Up Prices

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According to a Fortune Article, COVID-19 shutdowns have reduced the supply of lumber, just as folks stuck at home have increased there home improvement project. As a result, the price of lumber has gone up 134% and adding $14,000 to the cost of new home. I’ve experienced the lumber shortage first-hand at local Lowes and Home Depot stores. I’m seeing rising prices, bare shelves and imported lumber that is usually locally produced. Boards I can remember costing $6-7 each less than 3 years ago are now pushing $20 each. – Jason Savage, DTC Civil Construction Instructor

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Achieve Your Extraordinary. Become a PE.

by DTC Blog

You have achieved a lot in your career as an engineer, but you know that you are capable of more. Getting your P.E. license will open up a world of possibilities for you to achieve the extraordinary. And we can help you make those possibilities a reality with our 20-Week Reviews for the Civil and Mechanical PE Exams and our comprehensive plan to prepare you to pass the exam.

To help get you started on the path to greatness, we now offer flexible payment options, lower prices, and longer access. We want to make becoming a PE as stress free and affordable as possible for you.

Professional Engineers are changing our world for the better every day with amazing achievements. We can’t wait to see what you will do with your PE!

“When I learned that my current career may have hit a roadblock and I needed to do something about it, I wasn’t sure where to start. A coworker referred me to Dr. Tom’s Classroom, and I can’t thank him enough for it.

Almost 17 years after getting my graduate degree, very skeptical about my current learning abilities and not knowing what to expect, I felt that the course seemed very tailor-made for someone like me. Dr. Tom made sure everything was broken down and simplified for anyone to comprehend.

The DTC TFS Course was most definitely well worth it. I took the Mechanical TFS CBT exam and I received a passing result. Thanks for doing what you do to help students like me achieve something that felt unachievable otherwise.” – R. Balasubramaniam, Houston, Texas

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Robots Down on the Farm

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robot arm picks ripe cherry tomatoes

Robotic technology is changing agriculture. It is amazing what is being done with robots we normally associate with manufacturing. These changes were already in the pipeline, however Covid-19 and its requirements for a safe workplace have accelerated the application of this technology. 

A recent ASME Special Reports video highlighted these changes. The video runs a little over 10 minutes, but is worth the watch. Seeing a robot pick ripe cherry tomatoes from a group of both ripe and non-ripe tomatoes is innovative to say the least. And watching a machine handle the entire process of milking a cow is a thing to behold. 

A song that was popular during World War I was “How are you going to keep them down on the farm after they have seen Paris?” I doubt any of the robots featured in this video has a desire to see the Eiffel Tower, so I think we are safe that this technology is here to stay and find even greater applications throughout the world of agriculture. – Dr Tom

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FEATURED TESTIMONIAL – A Great Course!

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“Thank you Dr. Tom and team for this great course! I was very unsure with all the new changes that have been made to the standard PE Exam with the introduction/changeover to CBT format. With the help of God, lots of hard work, and what I’ve learned through this course, I passed the PE Thermal and Fluid Systems Exam this past Friday (first time taking the exam)! I will highly recommend this course to anyone I know that will be taking the exam in the future.” – PE, Missouri

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Hidden Benefit of Traffic Congestion?

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The human element is an omnipresent component of transportation engineering. No matter how a road is designed, we need to consider how drivers will react and behave. As congestion has decreased and roads have been more sparsely populated during COVID-19, some drivers have decided to excessively speed – putting their lives and others at risk.  This is perhaps a hidden benefit of congestion. – Daniel Findley, DTC Civil Transportation Insctructor

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