<p>Who beats who (please no, one builds targets the other weapons) :)</p>
<p>...I'd say that ultimately, they're roughly equivalent. My experience is in structural engineering, which stems from a civil engineering background but in functionality is more like a mechanical engineering background. In comparing notes with mechanical engineering students, they've got some more thermo experience than I do, and some more compressible fluids experience than I do, but I have more experience with a broader range of civil engineering topics than they do (dirt, open channel flow/water management, construction). We both know metallurgy and mechanics very well. I know welds better, but that's me personally. I actually took my first dynamics course within the mechanical engineering department, and it translated very easily to structures, and I think ultimately I have to know a little more about dynamics because of the nature of the excitation forces on my structures (earthquakes yield a lot of spectral analysis, but I also have a lot of medical equipment that throws forced harmonic vibration into beams and whatnot) though they know a little more about damping methods than I do. They might know a little more about plastics than I do, but I know a little more about glass, and I have some more methods of analyzing plates and things.</p>
<p>I've been ridiculously surprised at how versatile my structural engineering background has been, and at how many doors it's opened to me. I can talk my way into most of the big industries (rocket design/analysis, turbine design, anything with finite element analysis) that mechanical engineers try to work their way into, though what I do has more to do with the flow of forces through materials and crack propogation and only a little to do with heat transfer and airflow. If I wanted, I could get into the mechanics of compressibles a little more, though. Haven't tried to get a foot into the auto design industry, but I think I could do it.</p>
<p>It matters slightly what you want to do with your degree, but civil, despite its reputation for being a little bit more jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none than mechanical engineering is, can accomplish a lot of the same objectives. I'm not sure that a mechanical engineer could segue into civil or structural engineering quite as easily... at least, not the traditional, more mainstream structural design kind of civil engineering. They don't know enough about reinforced concrete to be able to do that.</p>
<p>I don't think either is better than the other, they're just geared towards different objectives. But if you press me to say which one wins, then okay: it's <em>totally</em> me.</p>
<p>If i were to choose, i would pick Civil Engineering. They design bridges, buildings and streets. They also work under a few constraints when building like cost space and time. Civil Engineering to me seems a lot more rewarding because you are designing something big or you are part of it.</p>
<p>I've majored in both, here's a quick summary:</p>
<p>Civil: concrete has stress, steel has stress, dirt has stress, water flows in canals, roads are built to standards, autocad</p>
<p>Mechanical: heat is transfered and powers stuff, fluids flow sometimes transfering heat and powering stuff, metals crack and fracture you can heat them, objects move and you can design them, matlab is involved</p>