Enquiries for membership and exam

[Dasein]

Hi All,

I have joined a railway consultancy firm for 1 year. In addition, I worked in telecommunications field about designing hardware and software of GSM phones for 6 years. Experiences aside, I have achieved MSc and BEng in engineering field already. (Notice that English is not my first language :-) )

My enquiries are as follows:
1. If I would like to join IRSE, should I enter "Associate Member" or "Associate" class for the membership? I only have 1-year experience in railway field although the telecommunication experience is somehow related to railway. I wonder if I will be qualified as "Associate Member" or not based on my academic qualifications and experiences. (I have read the membership routes from the IRSE site but I am still not sure which class i should apply.) May anyone give me some suggestions?

2. After applying for the examinations, a student resource pack will be provided. Is the pack included all the necessary materials for the exam? Or I need to buy the related books according to the reading list provided? How can I collect all the studying materials for the 4 modules so that I can focus in reading them?

Please provide some advices to me for the above enquiries.
Thanks in advance! :-)

[Jerry1237]

Hello,

Re English not being your first language... not until you said it wasn't.

1) You may be eligible for Associate Member. It depends on your academic background. There is a route to membership drawing on the IRSE website or you could contact the office for it.

2) The study packs give you some guidance to previous questions and some model answers plus some information which could help you study for the exam (I think the telecomm modules study packs aren't as mature as their signalling counterparts). My answer to how to study for the exam is that it is a vocational exam so by doing your day job you will learn to pass the exam and the purpose of the study packs is to assist in the weaker areas we all have. Read some of the IRSE textbook, the Yellowbook is ideal for some of the M1/7 fundementals, RAIB accident reports, this website, a studygroup (virtual or real)...

Hope that helps. Want anymore, feel free to ask.

Jerry

[Dasein]

Thanks for the reply!

If I would like to sit for the exam in 2011, is it OK for me to apply for the membership and exam now?

I reckon that I will take 2 modules per year.........hope that I can handle with it. It seems that the range of the studying material is quite wide.

[PJW]

Thanks for the reply!

If I would like to sit for the exam in 2011, is it OK for me to apply for the membership and exam now?

I reckon that I will take 2 modules per year.........hope that I can handle with it. It seems that the range of the studying material is quite wide.

It is two stage process: apply for membership now would be good.

Apply for the exam once confirmed as accepted (and paying your subscriptions). Deadline for exam entry is usually June but suggest apply earlier (regarding the availability of Study Packs).

No these are not "all you need to know about". In fact they tend to be light on the technical information (because that is railway specific); they aim more to show you the sort of questions and how to tackle the exam.
However they do vary; there is quite a lot of information re various subjects in Mod 5 and the Mod 2 one is huge (but even so doesn't have much on anything other than Network Rail specifically).

There is a Reading List of suggested material available free to anyone to download from IRSE website. Some of it is more essential than other bits- see some posts on this website that give advice.

You will need a couple of Corporate Members to sign your membership form- let us know if this would give you difficulty re who to ask to sign

Two modules a year I think is sensible

[Dasein]

Thanks for the reply!

If I would like to sit for the exam in 2011, is it OK for me to apply for the membership and exam now?

I reckon that I will take 2 modules per year.........hope that I can handle with it. It seems that the range of the studying material is quite wide.

It is two stage process: apply for membership now would be good. .......Two modules a year I think is sensible

Thanks for the info !