Ethics on the FE Exam
Every FE exam discipline includes an ethics and professional practice section, typically accounting for 3 to 5% of the exam. While this may seem like a small percentage, ethics questions are often considered "free points" because they rely on professional judgment and common sense rather than complex calculations. With proper preparation, you should aim to get every ethics question correct.
What the Exam Tests
The FE exam tests your understanding of the NCEES Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which serve as the basis for state licensing board regulations. The exam does not test specific state laws or regulations, but rather the general principles that all licensed engineers are expected to follow.
The key areas covered include:
- Public health, safety, and welfare obligations
- Competence and scope of practice
- Conflicts of interest
- Professional responsibility and honesty
- Confidentiality of client information
- Proper use of the engineering seal
- Obligation to report ethical violations
The Fundamental Canons
The NCEES Model Rules include fundamental canons that represent the highest-level ethical principles for engineers:
- Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. This is the most important canon and takes precedence over all others. When in doubt on an ethics question, the answer that best protects public safety is almost always correct.
- Perform services only in areas of competence. Engineers should not accept work outside their area of expertise. If a project requires knowledge beyond your competence, you should either acquire the necessary skills, hire a qualified consultant, or decline the work.
- Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner. Engineers must not misrepresent their qualifications, experience, or the results of their work.
- Act for each client or employer as faithful agents or trustees. This includes avoiding conflicts of interest, maintaining confidentiality, and disclosing any potential conflicts.
- Avoid deceptive acts. Engineers must not engage in fraud, bribery, or other dishonest practices.
Common Ethics Question Scenarios
Safety vs. Cost or Schedule
A manager pressures an engineer to approve a design that the engineer believes may compromise public safety. The correct response is always to prioritize safety. The engineer should document their concerns, inform their supervisor, and if necessary, report the situation to the appropriate regulatory authority.
Competence Boundaries
An engineer is offered a project in an area outside their expertise, with a tight deadline. The ethical response is to either decline the project or to bring in a qualified specialist. Accepting work beyond your competence puts the public at risk and violates professional standards.
Conflicts of Interest
An engineer has a financial interest in a company that is bidding on a project they are reviewing. The engineer must disclose this conflict of interest and recuse themselves from the decision-making process. Failing to disclose a conflict of interest is an ethical violation.
Confidentiality
An engineer learns proprietary information while working for one client and considers using it for another client. The ethical response is to protect the confidentiality of all client information and not share it without proper authorization.
Answering Ethics Questions on the Exam
Follow these guidelines when answering ethics questions:
- Always choose the answer that prioritizes public safety
- When two options seem correct, choose the one that takes the most proactive approach to preventing harm
- Look for answers that involve proper communication (reporting concerns to supervisors, documenting issues)
- Avoid answers that suggest ignoring problems, hiding information, or prioritizing profit over safety
- Consider what a reasonable, ethical engineer would do in the situation described
Study Resources
Read the NCEES Model Rules of Professional Conduct in their entirety at least once before the exam. The document is available on the NCEES website and is relatively short. After reading it, practice with ethics-focused FE exam questions. Most ethics questions follow predictable patterns, and seeing a variety of scenarios will help you quickly identify the correct answer on exam day.