Ultimate (noun).

The last semester of my undergraduate career starts in a couple of weeks. Three classes. Two part-time jobs. One Senior Design Project.

At Morgan State, students in the School of Engineering are given a Senior Design Project in lieu of the Comprehensive exams that most other majors take (thank god). We have one semester to find and research a topic (last semester for me) and another semester to flesh out said research and deliver a mock project (this upcoming semester). My project is based in Transportation Engineering with an emphasis on Traffic Calming.

As of now, I’m networking with different people and compiling information to start my project. All is on schedule at the moment.

Also, there is an exam that most Engineers take (Fundamentals of Engineering) to receive their E.I.T. (Engineer-in-Training) certification. The E.I.T. is the step before testing for your P.E. (Professional Engineering) license. The exam for this is in April 2011 and October 2011, but I don’t think I’m going to register for the April session. At my internship, I’d say a good 99% of all the P.E.’s in the office recommended that I take the exam before I graduate because of the breadth of topics covered, length of the test (8 hours) and the level of difficulty.

With everything that I have going on now as far as school goes and my Senior Design Project being a graduation requirement, the plan is to hold off on the F.E. exam until October. The last thing I need is to saddle myself down with extra work. Things don’t usually work out well when that happens. Also, one of the professors (who I actually have a class with this semester) offers a review session for people who are taking the E.I.T and P.E. exams. I’ll definitely be going to that after graduation.

5 months until Graduation.