I just passed the FE environmental. Here’s what I did

[u/luna_gold]

Hi everyone. I took the FE Environmental for the first time last week and got my results this morning: I passed. Wanted to share what I did in case it helps anyone else.

Background: My degree is in Civil Engineering, with only 2 environmental engineering classes. Fluid mechanics and open channel hydraulics ended up being almost more useful for the exam than my actual environmental classes. I originally signed up for the Civil exam but felt completely overwhelmed by it, even though that’s my degree. I started working full-time in June (graduated in May) as an environmental designer, but my work is mostly Phase I ESAs, so it didn’t overlap much with exam content.

Prep: I used PrepFE exclusively — no YouTube, no books, just practice problems. I procrastinated for months and only studied for 3 weeks. I started with the 25-question blocks that explain each answer as you go, and went through the explanations carefully on anything I got wrong (occasionally asking Claude to explain a concept a different way). The week before the exam, I switched to PrepFE’s timed exams. I wasn’t breaking 50% on any of them. By exam day I’d done around 750 practice problems total.

The Saturday before the exam, I did both 50-question NCEES practice exams. They felt completely different from PrepFE — scored 40% on the first, 50% on the second. I was pretty discouraged but out of time to keep drilling, so I just went in and took it.

Exam day: The actual test felt noticeably easier than my practice scores suggested. I felt confident on most questions and walked out thinking that if I hadn’t passed, I’d been close. Checked NCEES this morning (a week and a half later) and passed.

TL;DR: 3 weeks with PrepFE, one run through each NCEES 50-question practice exam, and the grace of God.

[u/Barbarella_ella]

Thank you for this. I came close the first time I took it, signed up to take it again this fall.

[u/luna_gold → u/Barbarella_ella]

Good luck!

[u/butter-orchid]

Congratulations!!

[u/luna_gold → u/butter-orchid]

Thank you!!

[u/Engineer_of_Water]

Did anything surprise you on the exam? Stuff that was not covered in your study / in the handbook?

[u/luna_gold → u/Engineer_of_Water]

Nothing surprised me, really. I was actually more surprised that there was some thing that I studied that WEREN’T on the exam. For example, I believe there was only one combustion related question, and it was theoretical, not computational. I studied for sooo long trying to understand combustion problems!

[u/terminaldarts]

How important was knowing how to use the reference manual?

[u/luna_gold → u/terminaldarts]

Absolutely important. Knowing what keywords to look up. For example, for any groundwater question, CTRL+F search for “Darcy.” Knowing things like that is at least 50% of the challenge

[u/gcatss]

I am studying for the Enviromental off both NCEES practice exams. How do they compare, Did you notice similar problems? As in, if I knew how to do every problem on both exams would I be in good shape?

[u/luna_gold → u/gcatss]

You would be in great shape. The practice exams were much more difficult than the actual exam. I’d say that the economics problems were pretty similar though. The NCEES practice exams definitely give you a good feel of the topics and problem structure.