Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Professional Registration

Most professions have procedures for licensing those who will practice the profession. This page briefly introduces licensing and offers an idea on what the licensing tests may cover. Refer to ISU Engineering Distance Education for further details about the licensing process.

It's up to you to determine whether you want to acquire a license. It depends on what you want to do with your education and the career, or careers, you embark upon. The answers may also be affected by whether you are an electrical or a computer engineer. Regardless, you may discuss the option with Engineering Distance Education as well as with faculty.

Kinds of Exams

There are two different exams:

  • The Fundamentals of Engineering (FE), often taken previous to graduation
  • The Professional Examination, taken after completion of the FE and four years of work experience

There are a number of FE exams, based on the major engineering disciplines. There is an exam designed for general engineering, one for electrical engineers, and others. Generally speaking, you should either take the general exam or the exam designed for your discipline.

Thus, an electrical engineering student would likely opt to take the electrical engineering exam. A computer engineer with a selection of electrical engineering courses could take the same exam, or choose to take the general exam.

Kinds of Questions

While the test will be different every year, you might expect to see the following topics in the discipline-specific portion of the FE exam:

Electrical Engineering Questions:

  • Analog Electronic Circuits
  • Communications Theory
  • Computer and Numerical Methods
  • Computer Hardware Engineering
  • Computer Software Engineering
  • Control Systems Theory and Analysis
  • Digital Systems
  • Electromagnetic Theory and Applications
  • Instrumentation
  • Network Analysis
  • Power Systems
  • Signal Processing
  • Solid State Electronics and Devices

General Questions

 

  • Chemistry
  • Computers
  • Dynamics
  • Electric Circuits
  • Engineering Economics
  • Ethics
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Materials Science/Structure of Matter
  • Mathematics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Statics
  • Thermodynamics

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