<p>I was wondering if anyone had some input on this field of civil engineering. I would like to know because I am torn between this and chemical engineering.</p>
<p>Fullcollapse, my dad was a CivE. His firm did consulting work in mass transportation, working on BART, MARTA, and the Rapid in Cleveland to name a few. He also did studies of traffic patterns at shopping malls. He retired in ~1980, so things have probably changed quite a bit. Bus lines, for the most part, seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur (with the exception of big cities like NY); but rail lines are still going strong. I'm thinking of the automated terminal systems at airports like Atlanta and Tampa or the new light rail line in Denver. That's the kind of work he did.</p>
<p>He traveled quite a bit, probably ~30-40 weeks a year. Some transportation issues are also political, and I remember him being interviewed for various newspapers. He was also occasionally called to testify as an expert witness. I can tell you he loved what he did and found it a challenge. The travel never bothered him, and a lot of the work was on-site, outdoors.</p>
<p>I know another CivE/PE (now retired) who worked on the interstate highway system, including bridges and tunnels. In the later years of his career, he worked solely as an expert witness, which was very lucrative.</p>
<p>Transportation engineering can be divided into a few categories: </p>
<p>1) transit engineering, which involves designing and enhancing mass transit systems and is primarily what Mudder's dad did, </p>
<p>2) traffic engineering, which involves the study of traffic flow and patterns, signing, striping, future traffic predictions, feasibility studies, and a ton of local-government consulting... there's a ton less travel in this facet of the field, </p>
<p>and 3) infrastructure development, which is interstate highway and roadway and bridge construction for the state department of transportation, which isn't particularly transportation engineering and requires a background in structural engineering. The more specialized your expertise in this one, the more you're gonna travel. If you design more run-of-the-mill roads and highways and bridges, you can stick close to home, but if you're a tunnel designer or specialize in large-scale segmental bridge construction or something, you're going to have to travel more.</p>
<p>I worked in traffic engineering for a year and a half and have been doing work with the Illinois DOT doing infrastructure research, so if you've got any other specific questions, feel free to pm me... I was also doing coursework with John Sedlak, the VP of Engineering for the Houston transit authority, when they were in the planning and construction stages of putting in the Houston Light Rail, so I might be able to answer some transit questions, too. (Incidentally, Mudder... Sedlak worked on MARTA as well, so he probably knows your dad!)</p>
<p>Best of luck.</p>
<p>PS- Bus lines are still going strong, actually, especially in cities with a lot of sprawl where a rail line isn't going to penetrate the urbanized area and provide enough coverage.</p>
<p>aibarr are you at Illinois? </p>
<p>Gosh now I'm even more torn. I like the idea of transportation a lot. It sounds so interesting. I will probably have to go to grad school though, right? That's what it seems to me. How would I structure my undergraduate program to work towards transportation? Will I have a chance to pick and chose where I want to work? Are there lots of jobs available in this sector? It's sometimes hard to find because they lump all of civil together. I just have so many questions. Picking is so hard.</p>
<p>I am indeed at Illinois... I'm a grad student there, though, so it's difficult to give you a whole lot of undergrad-oriented advice that's specific to the program at UIUC.</p>
<p>Grad school depends upon whether or not you want to design roads and bridges and tunnels and such. If you do want to do that, then you'll definitely need a masters. If what you want to do is more towards the transit engineering/traffic engineering side of things, a masters would certainly be beneficial, but it's less required for those two fields of civ than for many others.</p>
<p>TONS of jobs available in the field, but most of them are within state departments... beware of government employees! ;) Work in the private sector is also pretty readily available, especially in areas where there's near-constant road construction. Every place needs new roads, and new roads create new traffic, which needs to be managed. You can find work in lots of different places, which is nice.</p>
<p>In terms of undergraduate programs if you want to go into transportation engineering, I'd recommend going to a university with a larger civil engineering program. They'll offer more transportation courses which you'll be able to take as degree-related electives than a program with fewer students and professors. When you visit, check out the course catalog. If there are more courses than just a basic "Transportation Engineering" course, then you're probably set.</p>
<p>When it comes time to finding a job, get in touch with the ITE, or the Institute of Transportation Engineers. It's a professional society for transportation engineers, and it's a good resource to help you find jobs, or even more information about a particular field.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, check out which universities have ITE student chapters, and that'll also be a good indicator of which departments are active in the transportation engineering field.</p>
<p>Thanks again. Do you know anything about doing urban planning in conjunction with a transportation engineering degree?</p>
<p>Aibarr, thanks for the interesting information! I'm glad to hear trans eng is still going strong. As my dad passed away a few years ago, I don't know if he knew John Sedlak or not but I would guess so. In the last years before his retirement, my dad's firm had contracted work for a number of DeBartolo shopping malls. I imagine it was related to traffic patterns as I can't imagine what else it could have been.</p>
<p>I had to laugh at your remark about gov't employees. I remember my dad always used to say he never wanted to work for the gov't but liked having it for a customer because the gov't always paid!</p>
<p>I guess the man I knew was a structural engineer. His biggest project was a massive tunnel that one of the interstate highways runs through. Very cool stuff!</p>
<p>Have you decided yet which branch you're going to specialize in?</p>
<p>A lot of times, traffic engineering is included in transit engineering firms, so it sounds really reasonable that your dad would've worked on a couple of traffic flow projects. Very cool!</p>
<p>As to what branch I'm going into... I'm actually specializing in failure analysis and disaster response structural consultation. I'll be moving to Burbank once I finish my masters in May and will be starting work with a top failure analysis firm. I wake up every morning and can't believe that I actually get to crawl around at construction sites and figure out how to preserve structures and help people and prevent problems and rebuild homes. I'm really lucky that, through a combination of intelligence and ridiculously hard work, I've managed to run headlong into a career that I'd only considered attainable in my truly wildest dreams.</p>
<p>Interesting username, Mudder's_Mudder... Talking about racehorses or HMC out in Claremont? My younger brother's a sophomore engineering major at Mudd. =)</p>
<p>Hahaha, Aibarr! Proving yet again that the world is a big place but CC is a small one... I was never much for the ponies; I'm the mother of a junior Mudder, a science major who's developed a research interest in materials engineering. Thanks to the stems course in the core, he learned he has an aptitude for engineering, a surprise to a guy long in love with pure science; so he's going to be looking at a very specialized area for grad school.</p>
<p>It's wonderful to read about your career plans; your enthusiasm shines through every word. There's no doubt in my mind you'll leave a lasting mark on your profession. I wish you the very best in what will surely be a long and personally satisfying career.</p>
<p>Hope your Mudder is enjoying his education as much as mine is. As you'll be heading out to Burbank, I imagine little brother is looking forward to spending some time with you (and maybe even cadging a few meals away from Hoch-Shanahan!).</p>
<p>p.s. If you're at UIUC, I have my own little brother who's an alum! :)</p>