<p>In attending Ohio State this year and spent a lot of time deciding what orientation to attend. I decided with engineering vs GIS/geography for job security reasons. </p>
<p>Would a civil engineering degree with a minor in GIS be of any use or marketable to companies. Or would it be pretty useless?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>GIS is a tool civil engineers use. It would depend on the job. Some things such as water resources and transportation would use it allot more than a structural engineer. I would not do the minor if you have to be in school longer. If it doesn’t affect when you graduate it couldn’t hurt.</p>
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I’d say civil engineering with good programming background would be more marketable for doing GIS work.
You don’t really need a GIS minor since a lot of the classes can be taken as electives anyway.</p>
<p>GIS jobs are more economically sound but you have to be very good at GIS to be preferred for the job</p>
<p>As a GIS analyst in the Military there are A LOT of analysts getting out right now and jobs are getting hard to find. Most jobs are asking for a Masters in GIS or BS/ 4+ yrs of experience, and if you want a Gov job that pays $80k+ and you don’t have a security clearance than you’ll really have to sell yourself. However, my father-in-law owns a Civil Engineering firm and he said that a great CE with GIS experience is valuable on the market, especially if you actually like CE and like going out to job sites.</p>
<p>I would say GIS as an additional skill could be considered useful depending on your concentration. You more than likely would not be able to get a GIS-focused job but it’s a good skill to have.</p>
<p>I think it’s more important to know how to use GIS programs. I think a GIS minor would probably get more “into the woods” than you need to be. You can learn most of what you need to know as an engineer about using GIS through online tutorials via ArcGIS, for example.</p>