Some (stupid) questions about Civil Engineering...

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<ol>
<li>My first question is: How hard would it be to become a manager in some company after working for a while as a Civil Engineer?</li>
<li>I heard a lot about outsourcing, especially in engineering and science, so my second question is: How vulnerable Civil Engineering is to outsourcing?</li>
<li>After reading the following post: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062775441-post30.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062775441-post30.html&lt;/a>, I wondered whether I should study engineering in the first place! Then I spotted the word most: "...job-experience curve for MOST engineering fields is FLAT.". If this article is true, my third question is: Does most include Civil Engineering?</li>
<li>After some (or many) years working as an engineer and later hopefully as a manager, I really want to open a home business working for me instead for someone else. My fourth (and last) question is as follows: What type of home businesses can a Civil Engineer open?</li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>I can answer #4. My husband and I are civil engineers (structural). We worked for other companies as design engineers for about 12 years. We opened up our home consulting business June 25, 1999. Ten years ago this week! We get our work through word-of-mouth (Maine is a small place). We work for architects, contractors, and owners. We do everything from small houses to large commercial and industrial projects. We’ve tried to cast a wide net so that when one sector slows down, we can find work of a different type.</p>

<p>We prepared for at least two years before we opened. Got advice from an accountant, a business lawyer, and lots of engineers. We bought equipment gradually. We started with no debt except for our house mortgage. Occasionally we have to use a little of our line of credit when customers are slow to pay (that’s the biggest pain of owning our own firm), but things have gone pretty smoothly. Our biggest expense is insurance - health, professional liability, and general business.</p>

3

<p>

</p>

<p>If you have good relationships with your clients and can perform your work well, it won’t be too hard to become a project manager. A PE is key though.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Civil engineering is not very vulnerable to outsourcing. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being most likely to be outsourced, I’d put it at a 2 or 3. With the licensing requirements, it can’t be completely outsourced. I do know of one firm in Texas that is outsourcing part of a design to Romania (I forget what it is exactly, but it was a petrochemical facility of some sort). </p>

<p>The problem when you outsource work is you’re crossing geographical, language, and cultural borders. Collaboration becomes difficult because of the time difference and distance. Native language are different, and even if they can speak the same language, confusion does arise due to different terminologies. One thing that may be unique to civil engineering is that construction in one area is different from construction in another area. I’ve worked with people in India, and they had little to no understanding of plumbing drawings in the US. Structural steel and metal deck is a foreign concept to one inspector I work with, who moved here from Africa a few years ago. Until we can overcome these obstacles, outsourcing will be very limited in civil engineering. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I would say it’s not flat. Unlike other fields, licensure is very important for most civil engineers (you can’t really design anything by yourself without it). It is awarded based on examination AND experience (4 years in my state with a few recommendations from PE’s). </p>

<p>In addition, when looking for an engineer, clients typically look for someone who they’ve had a good working relationship with. They will ask for your qualifications in your proposal, so the more/better experience you have, the more likely you will be chosen. </p>

<p>In terms of the technical aspects, there’s probably a lot you learn with experience. Coming out of school, you probably don’t have as good of an idea of something’s constructibility as someone with 20 years of experience. </p>

<p>There’s a reason you don’t see a Mark Zuckerberg in civil engineering.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You can work as a … civil engineer! There are many many of them out there. What you need is to have a good established reputation with clients, so they’ll stick with you after you leave your firm. Other than that, you need a good computer and the necessary software for your line of work, insurance,</p>

4

<p>I think vvu posted some good questions; I’d be interested in hearing more answers from people in the field.</p>

5

<p>

</p>

<p>Not very. If you’re good at what you do, you’re probably going to end up gradually taking on management tasks as you get older and more experienced-- whether you’re a manager of projects or a manager of other engineers (usually you’re a combination of both, but it’s skewed to one side or the other) depends upon your strengths, weaknesses, and career objectives.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s very vulnerable to outsourcing, because you really work within a particular region as a civil engineer. Your experience shmoozing local officials and working within regional building requirements is invaluable. An engineer in India can’t go down to the Building Department in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and encourage the permitting process to hurry up a little more in order to make the client happy. What the job <em>is</em> vulnerable to is the whims of the economy-- in bad times, people build a lot less, so there’s not nearly as much work to be found.</p>

<p>We outsource some of our drafting work, primarily because our drafters are so overloaded with work that the engineers generate, but that’s the only outsourcing I’ve seen in this industry.</p>

<p>In fact, with the current push towards lean design in the architecture/engineering firm, I’d venture a guess that we’re going to see LESS outsourcing. The idea is that you get all the architects, engineers, and contractors working in the same place at the same time, and there’s a lot more direct communication and a lot less miscommunication. Ideas and information flow more quickly when everyone’s located near the jobsite, so bring everyone to the jobsite and have them work on a single project at a time… It’s an interesting idea, and the industry is currently trying to see how they can make it work for them.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>No, this is a field that values experience. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>You can do what MaineLonghorn does. You can also go into business as a quality control consultant for other companies, I’d guess, checking their work. Experience and a valid PE license are absolute musts, though, and while MaineLonghorn’s experience in starting her own firm was a good one, I’ve heard about lots of people who have dived into the shallow end headfirst… if you’re going to start a firm, start slowly and do your homework!</p>

6

<p>Thanks for the answers. More (stupid) questions on the way…</p>

<ol>
<li>Which were the most boring and which were the most interesting subjects you’ve attended?</li>
<li>How did you keep yourself motivated to learn boring subjects?</li>
<li>What is the most profitable job that you can do as a civil engineer and what is the least profitable one?</li>
<li>Is it true that much of the work that civil engineers do today (e.g. structural analysis) will be done on computers and there won’t be a big demand for them in the future?</li>
<li>Did you ever regret majoring in Civil Engineering and not switching to another major (e.g. Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Economics, etc.)?</li>
</ol>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>The most tedious subjects were the same ones that most engineers find to be tedious-- the introductory courses.</p>

<p>My favorite courses were the design courses. Steel design was my favorite, then concrete design, mechanics of materials, geotechnical engineering, and other really practical subjects.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>They were prerequisites to getting to where I wanted to be.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Most profitable would probably be as a highly experienced structural specialist doing finite element work for a niche defense market, or as an executive, though probably not as an executive for an engineering firm. Most firms are fairly small (except for the huge conglomerates like KBR or the like).</p>

<p>Least profitable? I guess being a lousy engineer…</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Most of structural analysis <em>is</em> done on computers today. You need someone to operate the computers and use engineering judgment to put the correct input into the computer, and to make sure you’re getting correct output from the computer, and to make sure the computer isn’t doing it wrong. A lot of my day is spent figuring out why the computer is wrong. It’s a lot faster than doing it by hand, but in every new version, there are new bugs that we have to work around. It’ll be generations 'til we’re replaced by the nice robots.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Civil engineering’s the only field of engineering that I’d ever want to pursue. I wouldn’t want to work with money, either… it’s nice to have money, but I wouldn’t want to deal with the pressure of markets up/markets down all day. If I did anything else, I’d teach, or I’d volunteer, or I’d be a musician, artist, photographer, or architect. Sometimes I think it’d be interesting to be a doctor. I think I’d rather design hospitals than work in them, though.</p>

8

<ol>
<li>I loved senior design, even though it was a lot of work. There’s just something about putting all the pieces together and designing an entire building, utilizing everything you’ve learned (and learning even more stuff that weren’t covered in courses).</li>
</ol>

<p>I probably disliked modern physics the most. I couldn’t see a direct link with the everyday world, and I didn’t understand 1/2 the things. Not being interested in the matter didn’t help that.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I wasn’t motivated, haha. That was bad.</p></li>
<li><p>For entry-level, I’ve seen those going into construction management getting the highest salary, and traffic engineering the lowest. When the economy was good, those seeking even more money found their way into real estate development later in their career.</p></li>
<li><p>If you can’t outsource it, how can you computerize it?</p></li>
<li><p>I heavily considered architecture early on, but I’ve never really regretted majoring in civil engineering. Urban planning was also on the back of my mind, but wasn’t a serious consideration.</p></li>
</ol>

9

<p>

Most boring: transportation
Most interesting: environmental biotechnology, hydraulics and hydrology</p>

<p>

I wasn’t motivated… motivation has nothing to do with getting the grades…</p>

<p>

I’m not sure with what you mean by least/most profitable. Like starting salary? or private/government? If it’s starting salary, you could google it up. If it’s private vs gov’t, it depends on which gov’t you work for… Some agencies, such as LADWP, have private pay with gov’t job stability.</p>

<p>

Not sure. Never worked for a structural firm. But as far as civil projects, I don’t think you could outsource them.</p>

<p>

No and yes…</p>

10

<p>Wow! …thanks for the answers! I’m now pretty sure I’ll major in Civil Engineering :)! But I still have one more question: Can you describe a day on the job (just to get the feeling on what is like being a CE)!? Thanks in advance.</p>

11

<p>There isn’t really a description that covers all CE positions. Some engineers will spend their days almost exclusively in the office, some will be mostly in the field, and some will be somewhere in between. It also probably varies greatly among CE specializations. You might get 5 different answers from 5 different people.</p>

<p>The only thing I can think of most would have in common is the need to collaborate with people outside your organization, whether it be clients, government agencies, contractors, architects or other engineers.</p>

12

<p>

It’s not the most interesting schedule, but mine looks something like this…</p>

<p>7AM - Arrive at work, check my inbox, email, CC, fb and news…
8 - Construction site for meetings, check construction progress, etc
10 - Process paperworks, RFIs, submittals
12-1 lunch
1 PM - Check email, inbox, voice mails
2 - review and approve submittals, analyze change orders
3 - meet with clients or other agencies or contractors (negotiation, update clients or data gathering)
4 - do some design work or some plan checks
6 - go home
7 - go to class or do homework
10 - sleep
repeat…</p>

<p>On some other days where I don’t have any paperwork and don’t need to oversee construction progress, I do design works or collect samples from influent or efluent… On some other days, I might have to do plan checks for 8 hours a day… On some other days, I might have to attend community meetings and be beeyotched at by the general public. </p>

<p>On reaaaaaaallly slow days when there’s nothing to do, I study for PE or school.</p>

<p>repeat… Nothing interesting…</p>

13

<p>Today I met with an architect from London to discuss the new master plan for the Menil Collection and Rothko Chapel. Total surprise. Really awesome new project; I’m very excited about it, and might get to go to London on business.</p>

<p>Later in the day, I argued with a person like rheidzan. Sorry, dude.</p>

<p>Some days I do calculations for most of the day-- real, honest-to-goodness, pencil-and-paper engineering calculations. I kind of got this impression in college that I’d never have to do that again, but nope! It was far more like college than I thought it would be. It’s sometimes heavily calculational for weeks or months on end when I’m really in the middle of a big structural design project. It can drive you a little bit nuts at times, particularly when it’s getting close to a deadline.</p>

<p>Some days I set up computer models. One project I worked on involved simulating about a hundred people jumping up and down at resonance frequencies at the midspan of a pedestrian bridge I was designing.</p>

<p>Occasionally, I go out in the field and walk around jobsites all day. It’s always fun to be mocked by rodbusters for tentatively picking my way across rebar before they pour.</p>

<p>Some days I meet with design teams, and will occasionally have to give my engineering opinion on design elements. (You quickly learn to say “Let me get back to you on that”…)</p>

<p>Sometimes I spend most of the day on the phone, which is okay with me because I like a mix of technical and interpersonal work.</p>

<p>Some days I’ll run pre-bid meetings or accept contractor bids for a project I’m doing.</p>

<p>I’ll work with municipalities a lot to get them to agree with how we’re designing things, or to get my clients reimbursed with public money for a new public line that they’re developing in order to get sewer or water or stormwater service to their sites, or to bring a new road in… You have to do a lot of footwork and get things approved in advance to get the city to refund you for building a public utility, as you might imagine.</p>

<p>There’s a LOT of formal training that I continue to go through, too. We have lunch classes probably once or twice a week, on a diverse number of topics. I’m currently working on updating our “Structural Interface with Elevators, Escalators, and Moving Walkways” seminar, which is pretty interesting.</p>

<p>It’s a healthy mix of different things. Civil engineering involves a lot of job function diversity.</p>

14

<p>

LOL. It’s ok. I love arguing!! :)</p>

15

<p>Congrats on the new project, aibarr! That sounds really exciting.</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>Oh no!! My suspicions are confirmed!! City engineers love to argue!</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Thanks! I’m really looking forward to it.</p>

17

<p>Life is too short to be stuck in a 9-5 office job. I want to try to be outside as much as possible. rheidzan, do you ever have time for yourself? Your schedule is ridiculous!</p>

18

<p>

Yes. On weekends and summer. I believe my schedule is nothing compared to investment bankers who work 80 hrs a week…</p>

19

<p>

</p>

<p>Don’t you have some other forum to spam on?</p>

20

@MaineLonghorn, That is a great inspirational story. Thanks for sharing. Congratulations to you and yur husband. Cheers