fresher!!

[venkateshwarv]

Hello guys,
I have joined ALSTOM transport a few weeks back and I am interested in updating my resume by clearing IRSE exams. Can some1 pl tell me how many exams per year is realistically possible. I can spend about 30 min per day during weekdays(mon-fri) and 3 hrs per day during weekends(sat-sun). And i understand from the IRSE official website that the exam is in the month of october 2011, which gives me about 12 months from now. Pl advice. Thank you

[PJW]

Hello guys,
I have joined ALSTOM transport a few weeks back and I am interested in updating my resume by clearing IRSE exams. Can some1 pl tell me how many exams per year is realistically possible. I can spend about 30 min per day during weekdays(mon-fri) and 3 hrs per day during weekends(sat-sun). And i understand from the IRSE official website that the exam is in the month of october 2011, which gives me about 12 months from now. Pl advice. Thank you

It obviously depends on your previous experience. However at a guess: no more than two, If you are an office based signalling designer then I'd choose mod 2 and mod 3 to start, since I know thst others with what I presume to be similar backgrounds have been successful with that approach; hopefully some of them will respond to your post and tell it from their perspective.

[venkateshwarv]

Thanks for ur reply. I am a fresher just out of college and this is my first job in ALSTOM

[Peter]

Thanks for ur reply. I am a fresher just out of college and this is my first job in ALSTOM

As PJW pointed out, success in the exam is about experience, not just knwoeldge. You are expected to demonstrate that you can apply engineering principles rather than plug numbers into formulae.

By way of encouragement, we have one candidate in our office who now has about 4 years experience in the DO and passed mod 2 the year before last and had a near miss in mod 3 last year (mainly because the written questions were a problem as someone not having English as a first language), so early pass is possible if you are prepared (and have the opportunity) to get a variety of experience and practice. The latter is what this forum is about. When you are ready, feel free to post attempts at questions and get some tips on the sort of areas that you need to work a bit on.

Of course, in theory, you can do all four papers in one year if you are so minded. Many do, but if you are at the start of your career, there is little point in trying to run before you can walk!

Peter

[PJW]

Thanks for ur reply. I am a fresher just out of college and this is my first job in ALSTOM

In that case it may be rather ambitious to sit the exam in 2011; I was assuming that you had been in your job a couple of years. It does of course depend whether your college course itself was railway signalling related, the work you are doing, what courses you attend, what "on the job" training etc. To give you an idea, in the UK those people lucky enough to be full time trainees with a wde ranging training course don't generally attempt the exam until they have completed 2 years.
However there is absolutely no harm in beginning to study; if you start now then there is 6 months before you need to decide whether you'll be ready for the exam next year and pay your entrance fee. You will however need to have applied to bcome a student member of IRSE by beginning of 2011 to be eligible.

Of course being freah out of college does have some advantages re being used to learning and undertaking examinations, so I don't want to discourage. Perhaps though decide just to study for one module initially- you can get a feel for them by looking at posts on this website and decide which would suit you best to start with