<p>I had another question for some possibly experienced people, and I wanted some opinions. What are the applications of electrical and computer engineering to the transportation, construction, and civil engineering fields? This could help me out a lot, and let my family help me do something with my degree. Thank you for your input.</p>
<p>Most structures, buildings, etc, have electrical systems in them. Somebody has to specify what these electrical systems will be, and how they will be operated and connected together.</p>
<p>Factories and industrial facilities often have equipment driven by motors that have to be sized, connected, controlled and powered appropriately.</p>
<p>For transportation, construction and civil engineering you can think of different kinds of possibilities. If you are interested in building things as an electrical or computer engineer, then engineering design and construction companies perform this work, usually by forming project teams. For EECS this might mean (exactly as monydad said), designing systems, selecting components, working with vendors, assisting with installation planning and start up/check-out. Each project is different, but the work is similar.</p>
<p>If you are looking at positions for CSEE after the construction is completed, then you could be looking at maintenance, service, upgrades, or working for a business that operates, for example, a port facility, or airport control center.</p>
<p>Finally, there are vendors who design and sell components For example, the computer-controlled cars that circulated passengers at airports...each car with controls could be a million dollar item, and the vendor does a brisk business continuously upgrading and improving the cars, replacing old cars, designing new better ones...much of this is electrical or CS work.</p>
<p>The perfect marriage of transportation and computer engineering would be the design of a network of smart traffic lights. I heard recently that if our nation's system of traffic lights were better timed that it would reduce commuting time by 30 percent and fuel consumption by 10 percent. Whether or not these numbers are accurate, there seems to be good potential for people with both sets of knowledge to address the issue.</p>
<p>Computer systems to time traffic lights have been available for decades. A new generation of "smart" traffic lights came on the market recently. However, many cities don't use them. If you live near a city that does, you'll notice the difference right away.</p>
<p>Your suggestions are exactly like I was planning to do. I could do work on traffic lights and lighting systems. All of this involves logic design, transformers, and programming that I learned in school. I was also thinking about doing work on database and civil engineering CAD programming in my own software company when I get experience and become a PE. What do you think about this as a way to use electrical and computer engineering combined with civil engineering?</p>
<p>I don't know anything useful about these areas of engineering practice, but I suggest you follow up at the career center at your engineering college, or perhaps faculty there. See if you can get in touch with people/companies who are doing something like this.</p>