Civil Engineering vs Construction Management (I'm having trouble choosing)

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

Hi, I am going to be an incoming freshman and I selected construction management as my major. I already fixed up my classes. However, I’ve been told and seen everywhere that civil engineering is the way to go if i want to be guaranteed a lucrative, rewarding career within construction/heavy civil-related work (such as project manager, project engineer, cost estimator). Of course I am going to make effort to complete internships along with the degree but I want to have the major that looks more impressive to employers.

Construction Management
Pros
-Includes the financial topics (accounting and economics)
-CM is a very specific major. I should have a solid understanding of the skills needed for this exact occupation.
Cons
-CM is a very specific major. Once i get a CM degree, I cant become anything else outside of construction. And I dont know how great construction demand will be by the time I graduate.

Civil Engineering
Pros
-It is very broad -> I am more marketable/versatile for more job opportunities. There are various types of project concentrations (construction, water, transportation)
-More challenging

-Civil engineers work in teams. I am more confident in a team. (Even though I’d feel alright as a lone worker)
Cons
-I dont know if it is worth taking on the challenge since theres a possibility that I could get hired with just the CM degree

I will appreciate any feedback. Thank you for reading my novel.

2

If you have decent grades, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting hired as a civil engineering major. I think it’s safer than construction management. I have a good friend who is a construction manager, and his career has been much more up and down than mine as a structural engineer. He had to move to Texas to find work a few years back, but now that oil prices have fallen, he’s been laid off again. At least in structures, we can get by on house design and other small projects if necessary. We try to work on a wide variety of projects, so that when one sector is down we can work on structures in other sectors (industrial vs. commercial, for example).

3

Nothing is ever guaranteed.

Whether or not you think you can make it as a civil engineering major will be the deciding factor. I am not aware of any companies that will hire construction management majors, but not civil engineering majors. What you learn in the CM program is typically learned/taught on the job anyway because construction firms can have recent grads with a wide variety of backgrounds.

I’m not sure what you mean by civil engineers working as a team as a pro. Everybody in the construction industry works as a team. On a complicated project, there can be hundreds of different companies involved from start to finish, design and construction.