<p>I was told by an adult that there are few jobs in civil engineering, is this true? I really like constructions and being able to design and execute buildings. However, he sort of frightened me, and told me that most civil engineers work in Universities these days and that the labor market is swamped with them.</p>
<p>P.S. Does a civil engineer spend most of his time outdoors executing blueprints, or does he design most of the time?</p>
<p>There are plenty of jobs available to civil engineering graduates...especially those who come from good schools (getting a grad degree helps a bunch, and co-ops). As far as all of them working at Universities, I would say that's false...maybe partly true if you were talking about Phd graduates. When it comes to working outside or inside, it depends what you go into, you can be environmental and work outside, or in labs...If you go construction you could be on the jobsite, or in an office doing scheduling and estimates, and if you go structural you could be inspecting jobsites, or spending your time in an office working with CAD etc..., it all depends what kinda of job you get (and many of them will be a mixture of both inside and outside work). But with a degree in civil you are very versatile and can usually find a job doing something which fits what you want to do whether it be working outside, or in an office or lab.</p>
<p>In civil enginering, the bulk of jobs will be with the government. With that said, it is good to attend a school in the state you want to work. For example if you wouldlike to work in North Carolina, try attending a North Carolina school where it will be easier to get an internship and subsequent job with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.</p>
<p>Whaa?</p>
<p>Not true. There are tons of private firms out there. Most people who are at, or even anywhere near, the top of their game in civ eng won't end up at a DOT.</p>
<p>Tons of jobs out there. The market's really good right now. I sent out a ream of resumes the other day... 96. Today, nearly the first day that I could've gotten a response back, I got four calls from four different companies, and I now have interviews with all of these companies, and I'm being flown down to Florida to interview. I'm a strong candidate, but if there were "few jobs" in civil engineering, I wouldn't be hearing from anybody.</p>
<p>There are inside jobs, there are outside jobs. You can spend your day in your office, you can spend your day on an oil rig, you can travel to foreign countries, you can climb buildings and figure out why cladding's falling off the side of a skyscraper... Depends upon which way you aim. Work hard. Develop people skills. Go get your masters. They'll beat a path to your door asking for you to be an employee. Jobs aren't tough to find when you're a civ e.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help, that really helped and it's a boost to my idea to go into civil engineering.</p>
<p>Yeah, he is right. I was probably basing this off my state of Louisiana, where industry is not that strong and civil engineering is basically government jobs and electrical engineering is basically utilities.</p>
<p>Other areas can be different.</p>
<p>Muer</p>
<p>My understanding is that civil engineering is one of the more stable fields... there will always be a fairly constant need for infrastructure -- new or renewed. Compared to some very popular fields right now, there might not currently be as many jobs... but at least in civil engineering you're not as likely to be caught in a bubble. It's unlikely that there will be a glut of civil engineers.</p>
<p>Yeah... in undergrad, we used to joke that all the potholes in Houston were our future job security. They'll always need civil engineers to plan all the construction out there on the highways. How else would the government drive people nuts? =)</p>