Civil Engineering is hazardous to your career prospects

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Understandable, but you really propose ignoring substantial evidence that is readily available which supports such claims?
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<p>I take this back, my apologies. Under Truman in the forties the national debt hit around 120% of GDP spent mainly on WWII. Adjusted for inflation this would be around 10 trillion today.</p>

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<p>I urge you to take a look at this article. (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, a fifth ranking officer in the Chinese military has a few interesting things to think about in his latest 303 page book.</p>

<p>[China</a> PLA officer urges challenging U.S. dominance | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6200P620100301]China”>http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6200P620100301)</p>

<p>““I’m very pessimistic about the future,” writes another PLA officer, Colonel Dai Xu, in another recently published book that claims China is largely surrounded by hostile or wary countries beholden to the United States."</p>

<p>“I believe that China cannot escape the calamity of war, and this calamity may come in the not-too-distant future, at most in 10 to 20 years,” writes Dai.
“If the United States can light a fire in China’s backyard, we can also light a fire in their backyard,” warns Dai.”</p>

<p>“Turn some money bags into bullet holders.”</p>

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<p>[Recession</a> Continues to Batter State Budgets; State Responses Could Slow Recovery — Center on Budget and Policy Priorities](<a href=“http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711]Recession”>http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711)</p>

<p>These new shortfalls are in addition to the gaps states closed when adopting their fiscal year 2010 budgets earlier this year. Counting both initial and mid-year shortfalls, 48 states have addressed or still face such shortfalls in their budgets for fiscal year 2010, totaling $196 billion or 29 percent of state budgets — the largest gaps on record.</p>

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<p>[Employer</a> Health Benefits Survey Archives - Kaiser Family Foundation](<a href=“http://www.kff.org/insurance/ehbs-archives.cfm]Employer”>http://www.kff.org/insurance/ehbs-archives.cfm)</p>

<p>1999 Survey.-
“Despite lower health care inflation and the best economy since the 1960s, the percentage of
Americans with job-based insurance has barely risen since 1993, and is lower today than it was 10 years
ago.”</p>

<p>2004 Survey-</p>

<p>“the survey also found that
the percentage of all workers receiving
health coverage from their employer fell
from 65% in 2001 to 61% in 2004.”</p>

<p>2007-
“Sixty percent of employers offer health benefits in 2007, similar to the 61% offer rate reported in 2006 but lower than the 69% offer rate in 2000.”</p>

<p>See a trend? This also ignores quality of coverage, the fact that premiums have increases 131% since 1999 and that employee contributions have increased by 128%…

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<p><a href=“http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2009/pdf/scf09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/bulletin/2009/pdf/scf09.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Credit Card Debt-
“Overall, the median balance for those carrying a
balance rose 25.0 percent, to $3,000; the mean rose
30.4 percent, to $7,300. These increases followed
slower changes over the preceding three years, when
the median increased 9.1 percent and the mean
climbed 16.7 percent (data not shown in the tables).
Over the recent period, the median balance rose
strongly for most demographic groups,”</p>

<p>Holdings of Debt-
“The share of families with any type of debt increased
0.6 percentage point, to 77.0 percent over the 2004–07
period (first half of tables 13.A and 13.B, last col-
umn), and has risen a total of 2.9 percentage points since the 1998 survey”</p>

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<p>[Income</a> Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Income Inequality Is At An All-Time High: STUDY | HuffPost Impact)</p>

<p>“Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez.”</p>

<p>“Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America. Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.”</p>

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<p>[The</a> U.S. Trade Deficit: Are We Trading Away Our Future?](<a href=“http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/webfeatures_viewpoints_tradetestimony/]The”>The U.S. Trade Deficit: Are We Trading Away Our Future? | Economic Policy Institute)</p>

<p>authored by: Robert E. Scott is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. He specializes in globalization and international trade issues. – Perhaps outdated, but the picture is more bleak now than at the time written…</p>

<p>“Since the 1970s the U.S. moved from a trade surplus to a deficit position, as Europe and Japan began to compete effectively with the U.S. in a range of industries. There are many ways in which trade has injured U.S. workers since then. First, deterioration in the trade balance (the difference between exports, which create jobs, and imports, which eliminate domestic employment) has reduced employment, especially in manufacturing and other industries producing traded goods”</p>

<p>“The growth in the trade deficit over the past two decades has destroyed millions of high-wage, high skilled manufacturing jobs in the U.S., and pushed workers into other sectors where wages are lower, such as restaurants and health service industries. When I appeared before this committee last spring, I summarized EPI forecasts that the Asia Crisis would lead to the elimination of one million jobs in the U.S., with most of the losses concentrated in the manufacturing sectors of the economy (Scott and Rothstein 1998). These job losses have begun to materialize, despite the continuing boom in the rest of the economy. The U.S. has lost nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs since March of 1998, due to the impact of the rising trade deficit. [2]”</p>

<p>China-
“China’s trade policies are modeled on Japan’s, in many ways. Government ownership and control of the majority of economic resources, and an extensive network of government controls over banking, economic activity, trade and foreign exchange flows have combined to create the U.S.’ most unbalanced bi-lateral trading relationship. U.S. imports from China are five times as large as exports to that that country. Even at its most extreme, the U.S.-Japan trade imbalance never exceeded a three-to-one ratio.”</p>

<p>Results on Income Distribution-
“Most economists now acknowledge that trade is responsible for 20 to 25 percent of the increase in income inequality which has occurred in the U.S. over the past two decades.”</p>

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<p>I give whoever read all that some credit jeez lets not over complicate this, everyone is already aware there is a recession</p>

<p>to the student from A&M, I’m guessing based off your resume your expressing difficulty finding the job you want, not necessarily an average engineering job? As one example, trying to land a job at an even fairly well known firm in a major city like chicago is a way’s bit different than landing a job in Des Moines Iowa…</p>

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<p>does anyone have the job placement statistics for last year COE graduates…like at flagship engineering schools, and even better, last years vs 5 yrs ago. let’s whip those out in midst of all this talk of credit card debt and trade deficits, i.e. a bunch of stuff no one here actually knows about, me included.</p>

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<p>Wow. And to think that someone here is exponentially more pessimistic than me is mind boggling. :p</p>

<p>all in all, well said tho purduefrank. +1</p>

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<p>Good Lord. Y’know what, you’re right. I quit. I’m going to quit my job building skyscrapers and just start collecting bottled water and firewood. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>Well aibarr, you could definitely argue that anyone that’s in engineering is atleast upper-middle class, and so they don’t feel the brunt of the recession. Or, to put it a little more bluntly, you (and your company) don’t. I know my father as a software engineer doesn’t feel it, whilst bringing in the above average salary for engineers, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. If we want to bring personal experiences into it, a few companies emailed me back saying they don’t even have enough space for a free intern. That, to me, would make me believe that it’s a real thing.</p>

<p>No one is saying that an apocalypse is coming (well I’m not, maybe purduefrank is trying to), but it is a problem, though I will say that I certainly don’t think it’s as drastic as the last gigantor post in this thread makes it out to be.</p>

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<p>Listen, I can understand how it’s easy to say that my post was pessimistic, apocalyptic, etc. However, I really wasn’t insinuating the world’s going to end, that people should walk away from their jobs building skyscrapers in lue storing bottled water and firewood, or anything else along those lines.</p>

<p>I could have just posted the links to the sites, but would anybody look? Probably not, most people probably didn’t take the time to read the excerpts that I pulled from the sites. </p>

<p>Statements like this</p>

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<p>I feel generally describe the attitude of our generation in this country. Yet the facts remain, and whether you take the time to look at the big picture or not, it doesn’t change the reality of our current situation. I’d love to write five pages right now about how trade deficits and consumer debt affect you as an engineering student trying to find a job – but who would care to read it… and of course, it’d be “a bunch of stuff no one here actually knows about anyway.”</p>

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<p>The state of the national deficit. Credit card debt. The economy. Haiti. Chile. Rape of women in Africa. Genocide in Sudan. Caste systems and slavery in India. The war in Iraq. Terrorism. The end of federally-funded manned space exploration. The rise of North Korea as a nuclear power. North Korea in general. Global warming. The endangerment of most of the mammalian species on the planet. Superfund sites. The melting of the polar ice caps. Breast cancer. All cancer. Bird flu. Ebola. Mad cow disease. The possibility of meteor strike and human extinction. The rise of litigation in the United States. The lack of accountability of the media. Conspiracy theorists. The rise in the prevalence of autism. The general ennui of the American people.</p>

<p>We should be extremely concerned about all of these things.</p>

<p>Much of my work is centered around disaster mitigation, and we work very closely with psychologists and sociologists who specialize in how groups of people deal with disasters.</p>

<p>Remember the severe flooding in Iowa last year? Of course you don’t. You don’t care anymore, because there’s a capacity to every person’s ability to care about a whole bunch of disasters facing them. They get exhausted. It’s not like the American people don’t care about these things because they’re callous and unfeeling, it’s because they’ve got their own lives to deal with and they’re also just trying to get by, and maybe if they threw themselves into it, they could do <em>something</em> to help <em>one</em> of these problems, but more likely than not, they won’t be able to personally change anything about any of those disasters.</p>

<p>I’m doing more than most right now because I’m leading the charge to get my company involved in the rebuilding process in Haiti through the American Council of Engineering Companies, which is doing work there. I called the senior leadership of our company out onto the carpet and asked them why they weren’t doing anything about Haiti, and guilted our company president into meeting with me several times. I’ve gotten in touch with the ACEC manager of relief efforts, and we’re in negotiations trying to figure out how best our company can afford to serve the people of Haiti. I’m doing more than most, BUT… I still haven’t even made a dent in alleviating Haiti’s pain and anguish, and then there are all those other disasters to deal with.</p>

<p>So don’t come through an internet forum and brandish your trade deficit flag in front of everyone as though you’re helping bring this problem to light and as though nobody else cares about it but you. If you want to do something, do it. But talk is cheap, and you have to do more than just be able to write five pages about it. Because even if you get someone to care, what are you DOING to fix it? Are you calling your congressman? Have you even gotten in touch with your local House representative? It’s pretty easy to do that. Have you volunteered to do work for an interest group? Have you submitted an editorial to your local paper? Really, do something about it. There’s plenty you can do.</p>

<p>Talk is cheap, PF. Do something; don’t come on here to College Confidential and write a rant and think you’re making a difference. Get off your rear and use your interest in the problem to DO SOMETHING if you think it’s important, but don’t sit at home and rant about the problem and complain about America’s disinterest, because diatribes on a college forum aren’t going to fix the world.</p>

<p>What are you doing to help fix the world?</p>

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<p>My husband is newly unemployed, I haven’t had a raise or a bonus in three years, and I got transferred from the structures group to the civil group to avoid a layoff. Many of my friends got laid off over the past year (one just found a new job, though, so don’t tell me there aren’t jobs for new grads out there, because she had to start over as a new grad). We’ve gone from a company of 430 to 320 employees. Minimum monthly payments on our student loans are $800. We don’t spend money on entertainment, we don’t buy new clothes, last month we spent $50 total on meals away from home, and if my husband doesn’t find a job by June, our money runs out and we won’t be able to afford rent on my salary anymore. Don’t tell me that I haven’t felt the brunt of the recession.</p>

<p>I’m just trying to get by like the rest of this country; to hold on until the economy turns around. Freaking out about it isn’t going to help anything, though. Getting good advice, understanding the whole picture, keeping a level head about what’s going on, working my butt off, being absolutely indispensable to my company, and being three steps ahead of everyone else… THAT is what’s going to help things.</p>

<p>Track down your local ASCE professionals meeting and meet as MANY people as you can, if you’re a civil engineering major. Talk to them and say, “Look, I’m a hard worker and a self-starter. I am here because I desperately want an opportunity to work for you and learn from you, and I know that things are hard right now, but I am willing to do what it takes. I know that there’s a huge fee crunch and that it’s hard to find good help to do the work that you have, because you have a lot of work that you have to do for far less fee than you usually get, and I just want to do what I can to help. Do you need someone to go to the City and pull plans for you, or to do research, or to just generally help out? I want to be there and be the intern to help you.” Market yourself. Read books and figure out how to make your own rain.</p>

<p>Again, DO something. Anything. Show up and plead your case, and don’t accept “no” as an answer from somebody who doesn’t have the authority to say “yes”.</p>

<p>OF COURSE it’s hard. Anything worth doing is, and you’re going to hear a million people say “no” before you convince someone (and you’re going to have to convince them) to say yes. It’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to fall into your lap, you’re going to have to go get it, but you can find a job in this economy.</p>

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Aibarr, I think it was nice enough for PF to share some of his points despites the fact many of these kids of this generation are ignorant ingrates. PF brought all these up and provides some reading materials, yet people still don’t care anyway.</p>

<p>Bringing these issues up is a start. At least people can be aware of these issues.</p>

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<p>Well, it’s a four phase attack… ;)</p>

<p>1.) Premeditation/Planning/Strategy – Right now I study in school like any other engineering student. However, I have very little interest in what I learn in class and look at it more like the ill conceived game I really think it is – I need my plack on the wall. </p>

<p>2.) Intermediate Coordination – Upon finishing school I hope to work in the oil industry – yes, saint-like I know. The jobs I’m looking at have a work schedule where I would work six months per year and make more money than I could do anything else – providing the resources for my coordination efforts. During this five year phase I will live under the same budget constraints I do now while investing heavily in the battered real-estate market.</p>

<p>3.) Detailed Strategy – Upon finishing my five year labor efforts in the North Sea, West Africa, Alaska, or wherever else they take me I will then turn the majority of my assets over to my brother for management during this five year phase. I will take a small amount and buy roughly 20 acres of remote land somewhere in the world where there are no malls, stores, or neighbors… It will be tricky to find the right location because I will need electricity for an internet connection – but other than that I will stay in a frill free hut on the property. During this five years I plan mainly to read and think. The thousands of great people who’ve walked this earth before me have left more knowledge between the pages of books than I could learn on my own in a lifetime – and the funny thing is, I don’t ever have time to read any of them. During the initial four years it will be something college except pointfull, my main goal is to learn about everything I’m interested in without the stress of finances, relationships, TV, and so forth – only wide open space that allows me to think freely. During the fifth year I will take what I’ve learned and decide how I can best utilize my life upon re-entry.</p>

<p>4.) Re-entry execution – I will re-enter society with assets that have accumulated value over the past five years which will then be utilized to accomplish whatever it is I set out to do.</p>

<p>Vague right? Well the funny thing is this… Between overcoming the screwed-up youth I went through to get here, the workload here, relationships, the media, constricting laws, confined space, the responsibilities of a real job, a future wife, kids, bills, etc… I just haven’t had time, and don’t think I ever will have time to clear my head and figure out what exactly it is I’m here to do unless I actually have a plan to figure out what my plan really is.</p>

<p>BTW – I could try writing my congressman who’s probably shacked up with Pamela Lee in a hotel room paid for by Big Pharm… but long ago I lost faith in these people, their policies, etc. When I think of an effective use of time that’s about the last thing on my list. Also, being busy is no excuse for not knowing about the economic, political, and military dealings of the country you’re a citizen of.</p>

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<p>there is no credibility in this forum on this particular topic, just a lot of people that ‘think’ they’re the enlightened ones, which is typical.</p>

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<p>Oh, to be so young and idealistic again! :slight_smile: Don’t fall in love, or all your plans will be messed up. Although DH, when I met him, had grand plans to move back to Alaska and informed me I would have to be willing to join him. BEING young and idealistic at that point, I said sure. Fortunately, several engineers informed him that Alaska is a hard place to raise a family, and he might want to reconsider. So we ended up in Maine, where we do have a remote mountain cabin with no electricity, running water, or internet service.</p>

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<p>Well, that’s pretty much the only medium we have for progress in this country… after all, they’re the ones who’re racking up this debt in the first place. So your only chance is to beat 'em or inspire 'em. How’re you going to do that when you’re shacked up in a cabin, reading things, while the rest of society has crumbled under the weight of its own debt? I’d pick “inspire 'em”. Go have a chat with your local congressman. I’m serious. Go introduce yourself. If you look, you’ll see signs saying “REP. JOHN Q. CITIZEN, INDIANA REPRESENTATIVE, 48TH DISTRICT” discreetly pointing out your local representative. Drop by and see when the representative’s going to be in, and whether or not you, a constituent and taxpayer, may speak with him about your concerns.</p>

<p>How can you not have faith in the system if you’re just walking into a voting booth and clicking on a name you’ve only vaguely heard of (which, let’s get real, is probably what we mostly do)? Get involved and talk to these people. It’s not like they’re celebrities; they’re representatives for YOU. That’s what they’re there for. You’re a student, this is your future, you’re young, idealistic, and entitled to answers from the people who’re running the country that you’re going to take over tomorrow. Don’t take no for an answer, don’t accept any BS from them, and state your opinions to one of them. Take a group of friends. Don’t sit in your ivory tower and lay out your five-tiered plan to do something after you’ve already lived your life; that’s no good. Take action <em>now</em>.</p>

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<p>And this is just silly. It’s not like anybody’s bravely sharing talking points face-to-face; this is an internet forum; it’s a free soapbox. I could say that I’m chainsawing live pigs out in the parking lot and you guys wouldn’t give a rat’s rear end about it. And I don’t think the kids of this generation are ignorant ingrates at all. The vast majority of the people that I’ve seen at the polls in the past few elections are students and young professionals. That’s who voted Obama into office-- the first black person to ever be elected to such a position, and whether you like him or not, that’s pretty incredible to contemplate. When my dad was a kid, black people weren’t even allowed to vote. It’s mind-boggling that we’re the generation that helped usher in this new era, so I prefer to think that we’re a force to be reckoned with. There’s not so much laziness in this generation as you’d believe, but we need to take it a step further and step up. </p>

<p>So, c’mon, do something <em>real</em> tomorrow to fix the world.</p>

<p>PS- She’s Pamela Anderson, btw. She and Tommy Lee divorced a long time ago. ;)</p>

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<p>Sorry for bumping this thread again, but I thought I’d add in a historical perspective of the construction industry. </p>

<p>In April 2007, the unemployment rate in construction was 8.6%, and that was before the recession hit. In contrast, the national unemployment rate only rose above that level in April 2009, during the worst part of the recession. Before that, the last time the national unemployment rate rose above 8.6% was during the early 1980s, before most current students were even born. Sources:</p>

<p>[Industry</a> Unemployment Hits 11% - ENR | McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR: Engineering News Record | McGraw-Hill Construction](<a href=“http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/article_necoar080528b]Industry”>http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/article_necoar080528b)</p>

<p>[The</a> United States Unemployment Rate](<a href=“http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp]The”>http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp)</p>

<p>Even when the economy fully recovers, I find it hard to believe that civil engineers will do well since the great majority of it is dependent on the construction industry.</p>

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<p>I searched for “unemployment rates in civil engineering” and stumbled across this:</p>

<p>[Third</a> quarter engineering unemployment data show mixed trends | The Engineering Daily](<a href=“http://www.engineeringdaily.net/third-quarter-engineering-unemployment-data-show-mixed-trends/]Third”>Third quarter engineering unemployment data show mixed trends – The Engineering Daily)</p>

<p>This actually shows that in 3Q 2009, civil engineers had a lower unemployment rate (3.6%) than electrical engineers (7.3%) and mechanical engineers (9.5%). It references BLS.</p>

<p>It’d be interesting if anybody found historical data for unemployment rate for civil engineers, and not just the broader construction industry.</p>

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<p>+1, Ken. Even though unemployment is still high in construction in Maine, structural engineers are busy. I noticed that one local firm just hired another structural. If DH and I hadn’t determined it’s not worth the hassle of adding people to our firm, we would hire someone right now.</p>

<p>It took a couple of days for an attorney to return my phone call last week. When he finally called, he apologized, explaining how swamped he’d been. He said, “I can see that the economy is turning around, just by looking at the stack of papers on my desk!” Maine’s tax receipts are up, so our budget is not AS bad off as it first appeared. Still tough, with a lot of money to education being eliminated, but things are definitely looking up.</p>

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<p>Wow purduefrank, you really are an inspiration.</p>

<p>But if I were you, I wouldn’t come back to America… the system here, sucks, as you said, and IMO trying to fix it is pointless. Go to a country that has some integrity.</p>

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<p>Well, it seems that the construction industry has finally stopped getting worse. From:</p>

<p>[Construction</a> Job Growth Encouraging, But Hole Remains Deep](<a href=“http://www.forconstructionpros.com/online/Construction-News/Construction-Job-Growth-Encouraging--But-Hole-Remains-Deep/4FCP16084]Construction”>http://www.forconstructionpros.com/online/Construction-News/Construction-Job-Growth-Encouraging--But-Hole-Remains-Deep/4FCP16084)</p>

<p>“construction unemployment still remained near Depression-era levels at 21.8%.”</p>

<p>I’m surprised at how cyclical this is - 19% unemployment last fall, 27% unemployment this winter, and 22% now in spring. Is there a seasonally adjusted rate available?</p>

<p>Ah, the good old days (1993) when civil engineers had an unemployment rate of only 0.6% (!):</p>

<p>[Who</a> Is Unemployed?](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf97336/exec.htm]Who”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf97336/exec.htm)</p>

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<p>The last link you supplied seems exactly what we should be doing.</p>