<p>I've been looking tons of places online but I can't find a solid answer! I'm looking particularly in Illinois, what would be the starting salaries for a Civil Engineer with a B.S.? An M.S.? And a Ph.D.?</p>
<p>One sec, it’s in my Duke TIP magazine…</p>
<p>Average starting salaries for civil engineers by degree:
Bachelor’s- $52,287
Master’s- $53,311
Doctorate- $60,351</p>
<p>Take this information carefully… My dad has a bachelor’s in civil engineering from a respected university in the field, yet he’s making ~$35,000 per year doing construction work.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! :)</p>
<p>No problem(:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html</a></p>
<p>Civil engineering is the lowest paid engineering discipline by far, because it is the easiest engineering degree to get</p>
<p>^ This is pretty silly logic…so people are paid on the basis of how hard their major was? And that is because!? Or is this meant as some kind of loose argument for supply and demand? </p>
<p>According to this source, civil engineers are not at all the lowest paid, nor is there an oversupply relative to ‘harder’ majors (look at the stats on electrical engineering):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/engineering.pdf[/url]”>http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/engineering.pdf</a></p>
<p>^^lol how bout providing government statistics instead of those from one college?</p>
<p>Look on the bls.gov site, civil engineers are paid the least.</p>
<p>Want to argue with the government?</p>
<p>^ i’m sure people would rather argue with someone who has actually started their engineering degree…</p>
<p>
It’s the lowest paid not because it’s the easiest, but because there’s almost no work for civil engineers… Finance majors are easier and yet they make more to start and there’s more work.
So yes… it’s all about supply and demand…</p>
<p>Civil engineering, is in general, lower-paid than the rest of the disciplines because the nature of the work makes it that way. Think about it. Biomedical engineers make great money because biotech is the way to go these days; chemical engineers do too because of the pharmaceutical industry. I do not believe it is the ‘easiest’ major; nor do I believe the market is any worse for civils than any other major right now. Civil engineering encompasses a whole lot more than construction, which is the reason most people falsely believe it is bad. Transportation engineering and environmental engineering are big deals these days and those fall under the civil umbrella. Add to that the nation’s infrastructure is falling apart. Something will have to be done - no ifs, ands, or buts - whether there is money or not. This will pave the way for civil engineers as well. One more thing: If you look on the U. S. Department of Labor and Statistics job projections, three branches of engineering stood out as growing more jobs much faster than average. Guess which ones they were: Biodmedical, Environmental and you guessed it CIVIL.</p>
<p>The job market is exactly supply and demand, so get used to it and think about it before you invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in your education. Any job that is related to the construction industry will be seriously depressed for many, many years. Engineering for buildings for the most part can be done on a remote basis, so the vast majority of projects will be handled over the Internet by overseas outsource contractors, much like tax returns are done today by most accountants.</p>
<p>thank you my good sir.</p>
<p>I would hate to have to go into a building designed and built remotely - no way that is going to happen. So while I agree construction is slow it is just a very small part of the whole field. The bridges, the roads etc will all have to be fixed - no matter what - there is your supply and demand.</p>
<p>While theoretically a building can be designed overseas, it’s not practical. The engineer would still have to be licensed in the state in which the structure is located. With the experience, education and continuing education requirements, it is very difficult for a random engineer in another country to do this. It would have to be someone who has spent at least a few years working with other engineers licensed in the U.S. </p>
<p>You also lose the ability to visit the construction site. Any decent engineer will tell you this is important. My structural engineer visits my site every week or two to review design issues, see them firsthand and figure out a resolution. When we were doing foundations, the geotechnical engineer was on site every day performing inspections.</p>
<p>Yes, the nation’s infrastructure will have to be fixed, but nobody wants to pay for it. New Jersey’s governor recently brought a project to a screeching halt that would have doubled the rail capacity into New York City because of potential cost overruns. I wouldn’t have had such an issue with this, but this was done after a quarter of a billion dollars of work was put in place. $271 million dollars was already spent for absolutely nothing. </p>
<p>I’ve heard a lot of talk, but nothing is being put in place. What will end up happening is bridges and roads will deteriorate to such a poor condition that they have to be closed before the politicians will spend the money to fix it up (at which point the costs will have multiplied many times over). So yes, either way there will be work. It’s just a matter of whether the govenment wants to pay less now or more later.</p>
<p>absolutely agree, ken</p>
<p>
Let me be honest.
For those of you wanting to become a cive, there will not be enough demand for cives in the immediate future. Anybody who says the economy will be recovering within 5 years is only dreaming. After pumping hundreds of billions (maybe trillions?) into our economy, our gdp growth was about 1% last qtr. </p>
<p>On the contrary, China is building like crazy. I went to shanghai and there are far more bmws and mercedes over there than La Jolla and LA combined.
Those of you who wants to be a cive, I’d recommend studying mandarin since most of the work is and will be in china for the next couple of decades. Having ZERO student loan will become really important as it will improve your mobility to where the work is (china).</p>
<p>To put things in perspective, the World Economic Forum ranked countries based on their infrastructure system and the U.S. is 15th. China has spent $3.3 trillion on infrastructure since 2000. India is investing $500 billion in infrastructure by 2012, and an additional $1 trillion by 2018.</p>
<p>I haven’t had a chance to read this report in detail yet, but I did browse through the bullet points: [Report</a> | Building America’s Future Educational Fund](<a href=“http://www.bafuture.org/report]Report”>http://www.bafuture.org/report)</p>
<p>This is what I referenced for infrastructure rankings: <a href=“World Economic Forum - Home”>World Economic Forum - Home;
<p>Our economy will be tanked for a while especially if we decide to work our way out of dept. I have considered civil engineering as well and the pay is highly skewed. Some people own a firm and make good money but most find a low paying job in construction. If you can, look into other engineering degrees. Both mechanical and electrical pay well. There is just a bit more science involve in these.</p>