Do Civil Engineers have good job prospects?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>I'm going to attend Virginia Tech for Fall 2011.
I really want to major in civil engineering, but my mom wants me to do mechanical or chemical because she says that civil engineers don't have good job prospects out of college.</p>

<p>If I were to do well, or even average, at VT, should I worry about being hired. My mom also said that civil engineers don't have very stable jobs, and they don't get paid very much (she didn't give me any specifics)</p>

<p>Can someone help me with this?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>The recent economic cycles affected civil engineering greatly, since both the bubble and the crash were real estate and construction driven. Job prospects in 2005 were (at least for the short term) great for civil engineers, but they were poor in 2009.</p>

<p>Of course, other engineers can also be affected by industry-specific business cycles.</p>

<p>You can check various universities’ career surveys here:
<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&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

3

<p>At the moment it isn’t looking incredible.
However, in a few years things will hopefully better.
The stability of the job is also not so good, but it could depend what field of civil engineering you are like structural, construction, or materials. </p>

<p>However, if you are attending a highly ranked engineering program which I don’t know about VT, and maintain a good GPA, you should be able to have an easy time getting a job and making good money.
Is Civil Engineering a good job? For me no, but I would look into the fields of Environmental and Biomedical which are said to grow quite a bit in the next ten years.</p>

4

<p>I wouldn’t worry too much. Just major in what interests you more. Infrastructure is failing and is going to have to be fixed/replaced. You could also focus on environmental or water resources. Environmental is a pretty big field for now with this big green movement and everyone always need water. I started in civil then switched to environmental just because is was more the area that interested me. Very similar to civil though. And if it matters to you bls.gov says job outlook for mechanical is slower than average (growth of 6%) and for civil much faster than average (24% growth). Maybe those stats will help with your mom.</p>

<p>If you don’t already know about bls check out the link below. Lots of information here on all engineering fields.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#outlook[/url]”>http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm#outlook&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;