Civil engineering with color blindness

Can i be a successful civil engineer if I am color blind?

As a non-engineer, but as an optometrist, I would think so. There are different levels of penetration of color deficiencies/defects. The most common types confuse subtleties with the green/yellow/red continuum. If color identification is important, there are work a rounds like looking through a red lens temporarily. The red will still be red, but green will turn black. Seeing color properly isn’t as important as just being able to distinguish differences. Maybe some CEs can chime in as to the importance of color vision per se.

Checking of drawings was generally done in red. “Redline”. However, everything is increasingly being done on BIM. Anyone know BIM?

Pipes are color coded in processing facilities. Survey utility line markouts are done with colored spray paint. Would be a concern if you work in construction inspection or chemical processing areas. I escorted a color blind engineer through a chemical processing inspection; and we were fine with it.

Maybe you call or walk into a human resources office of large civil engineering firm and ask. Ask a couple of them. Or correspond with college civil department heads.

I’m curious if those Enchroma glasses would work for you.

When it sounds too good to be true, it’s too good to be true. Nothing, including Enchroma, can make people see what they don’t have the physical capability to see. They claim that people see colors correctly, but they don’t. It’s a simple color shifting lens. I’m surprised the FDA hadn’t made them modify their claims yet. They will eventually. Now, would they help someone differentiate colors a little better like any other spectrum blocking option? Maybe.

Not a CE but an ME here - but I feel compelled to opine.

I work as an ANSYS engineer (simulation software, look up images on google).

My boss’s boss is color blind - from what I can tell, severely.

Since ANSYS results are (at least superficially) revealed through colors, he struggles and I have to walk him through results in words.

Not sure what exactly he sees,but at the end of the day, he seems to understand just fine after a bit of effort.

I wouldn’t let this influence your decision making.

I think there are phone apps that can help you identify colors when necessary, too. There are several on the App Store, I think. One is called “Color Blind Pal” – it was created by a Harvey Mudd student, and is free. I haven’t used it, though.

I don’t think there’s any reason that a colorblind person can’t be an engineer. There will be added challenges, just like in the rest of life, but it’s hardly a disqualifier.

This is why I always try to present my results using color scales that are friendly to colorblind people (Google “cubehelix”). I use one where even if someone is completely unable to see color, the colors still map straight to a gray scale, so everyone in the room or reading along at home can tell what a given figure is saying. It’s not perfect, and I am in the minority of people who even think about the issue, but every little bit helps, right?

That’s brilliant!

About 5% of the population has some sort of deficiency. Due to the way most forms are passed on genetically though, it’s skewed greatly towards men. Roughly one in ten males are color deficient. Since engineering, at least for now, is a male dominated field, it’s almost a certainty that everyone will interface with a colorblind engineer, probably many of them over a career.

Similar theme…

https://www.dyslexiefont.com/en/dyslexie-font/

My dad i red/green color blind. (The first time he encountered a red arrow at a traffic light he assumed it was the usual green and got a ticket). He never mentioned a challenge with his drafting / mechanical engineering work, but his career was mostly in the days of paper (non-CAD) drawings.