<p>I'm not too familiar with engineering and I was curious, Why is Civil and Environmental Engineering usually combined in the same department?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Typically because there’s a lot of crossover between water/dirt quality. Civil engineers’ projects interface with the earth, so you have to know a lot about the earth. Environmental engineers’ projects are usually in support of civil engineering projects or manufacturing, or things of that nature. It all has to do with being good stewards of the land that we build on, so the things that they learn are often interconnected. It’s not true for every case, but there’s a fair amount of crossover, and the types of job functions that civil and environmental engineers end up in are often similar-- dealing with municipal, state, and federal entities to make sure that a lot of rules are followed.</p>
<p>one thing i don’t like about the civil and environmental engineering program that i had was the breadth of the classes that i had to take. i am a structural focus and i don’t mind learning about fluid dynamics and pavement engineering but gosh i wish i didn’t have to take water quality, air quality, and transportation engineering, something i don’t see myself doing 20 years down the road. because of that the structural classes that i took were only about 8. that’s only 2 quarters worth of classes. i could have finished early/learned much more.</p>
<p>The problem with that is you will have to know Construction, Geotechnical, Structural, Transportation, Water Resources and Environmental for the P.E. exam (and F.E. if you take the afternoon civil section). It’s going to be tough to get by if you only understand one discipline. </p>
<p>Even though I liked the breadth, I understand your frustration in taking courses you’re not interested in. I’ve had quite a few courses I disliked in my general curriculum outside of the civil engineering department.</p>
<p>I know in the past aibarr has suggested dividing civil engineering into two majors, though I forget how she divided it. I can’t quite figure it out myself. You’d definitely have to group geotechnical with structural. And transportation utilizes geotechnical. Construction would naturally go with these. That leaves water resources and environmental, which I can see them being on their own.</p>
<p>Actually, I’m kind of glad regarding the breadth because it doesn’t limit you to jobs in one particular discipline during school and when you first graduate. I’ve been able to work in transportation and construction (and had an open offer for a structural internship which I had briefly considered).</p>
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<p>Hrm… Wish I remember how I’d divided it, too. I think I just suggested that structural be split off from civil. Plunk geotech and construction in with structures and put a business spin on it, separate out envi and water resources and throw in some chemistry… There’s kind of a natural divide between the mechanics of materials whatnot, and the environmental resources whatnot.</p>
<p>I think it’s useful to know the rest of the stuff, as a structural, though. My current position (there’s not much use for stadium and high-rise designers at the moment…) is basically as the structural liaison to our civil department, which means that I’m doing civil work along with consulting structural work for all the civil engineers in our company… retaining walls, pier foundations, bridge analyses, utility vaults… and I’m begrudgingly getting quite the education in all those things that I thought were un-useful in school. In forensics, we’d also use all that random stuff all the time. It can be more useful than you might think, even if you specialize in one area, because all the areas are so interrelated.</p>
<p>i can see how geotechnical and construction being tied closely to structural. i just wish i didn’t have to take environmental and transportation.</p>
<p>as far as PE goes tho, the breadth (morning) section was relatively easy compared to the depth (afternoon) section. you can answer those questions easily just by going to the reference book, of course you need to know where it’s located in the book since that book is huge. so the non structural classes that i took weren’t of much help for my PE.</p>