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Engineering students have near-perfect pass rate on national exam

Kim Chaudoin | 

 

Seniors in Lipscomb University’s Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering recently scored a 95 percent pass rate on the national Fundamentals of Engineering Exam (FE exam) while the national pass rate was only 77 percent.

Twenty of 21 Lipscomb seniors who took the exam passed the exam. The Tennessee pass rate was 80 percent, with 587 students sitting for the exam from all of the engineering programs in the state. The exam is not required for engineering students to complete, but is used throughout the nation as a mandatory step for those wanting to acquire a professional engineer license.

“This national exam is an important step for engineers who want to be registered as a professional engineer,” said Justin Myrick, dean of the College of Engineering. “We incorporate this exam into our program, although it is not a requirement for a student to receive a degree, because the results represent one important external benchmark for the quality of programs within our college.”

Lipscomb engineering students have historically fared well on the national FE exam. Since 2005, 116 seniors have taken the exam with a total pass rate of 93 percent over that time period. For three of the past five years, Lipscomb students have had a 100 percent pass rate.

Myrick said the FE exam is one of three external benchmarks the college uses to help monitor the quality of the programs and outcomes. The other measures used are the percent of students who are hired within six months of graduating (almost all) and the acceptance of Lipscomb graduates into top engineering graduate schools.  Lipscomb students have been accepted at universities such as UCLA, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Auburn, Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Harvard among others.

Lipscomb University began offering engineering classes in the 1930s. Students at that time transferred to other institutions to graduate. The first computer engineering and mechanical engineering graduates finished Lipscomb in 2002. Its mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering programs are nationally accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org. The Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering now consists of undergraduate departments of electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and the new, soon to be accredited, civil engineering program.  The College also has a new Master of Science in Engineering Management begun in 2012.