<p>I kind of want to be a civil engineer because ever since I was a kid I've been interested in building cities and bridges and skyscrapers, etc. I honestly can play SimCity 4 for hours...even the whole day without getting bored. However, I know not all civil engineers work on megastructures and cities and that there are already a lot of civil engineers out there to fill those positions. So my question is, if I get a BS in civil engineering, will I have a boring job in a cubicle designing strip malls or wastewater treatment plants in some urban sprawl suburb, or will I be able to work on projects that rival those in Dubai. I would also like to have the opportunity to travel and maybe even work in other countries, and it seems like having to get licensed in the state you work would tie me down.</p>
<p>Well, I wouldn’t compare civil engineering to playing SimCity all day! You can definitely get a job designing skyscrapers if you’d like, though - that’s what aibarr does, I believe. It would help if you got an MS, though - there’s SO much to learn about structural engineering that it’s hard to cover in just 4 years. Employers like to hire people with master’s degrees, I’ve found.</p>
<p>You never know how life will turn out, though. I had similar ambitions to yours. I ended up living in a tiny town in Maine, designing much smaller buildings. Why? I decided that the lifestyle here is much more to my liking than living in a big city in a high-pressure job.</p>
<p>Once you get licensed in one state, it’s not too hard to get your license in other states (there is a national organization, NCEES, that will keep your records and forward them to state licensing boards for you). I think my husband has about ten licenses now. A lot of times, the engineer of record will stamp the drawings, anyway, so the design engineers working for him/her don’t need to be licensed everywhere. It gets pretty expensive and time-consuming to maintain licenses in a lot of states (the continuing education credit requirements differ greatly, and it’s tricky keeping up with all of them).</p>
<p>SimCity 4 is more related to urban planning than civil engineering.</p>
<p>@ken285 especially considering the various zoning that a player ‘buys’ for developement. Although my guess is your more interested in developement rather than actually managing/designing/affecting the urban form.</p>
<p>I’m interested in everything from mapping out the roads to watching skyscrapers grow</p>
<p>@bokonist Well those are two different professions: land surveying and the structural/architectural fields. Essentially you either A. need to figure which you want to focus or B. determine an intense study which allow you to understand both fields.</p>
<p>Well I guess I like architecture a lot more than “land surveying” but I don’t want to be stuck in a cubicle all day crunching numbers. I’m more interested in the design of buildings or cities than the physics behind them. I’m trying to decide whether I want to be a structural engineer or a biomedical engineer specializing in neural engineering because I know I’m interested in that science, but I’m not sure if I’m interested in the science behind designing buildings. To be honest I don’t even think I like physics, and I assumer that’s all pretty much structural engineering is…</p>
<p>Structural engineering does involve a lot of calculations, but it also includes nuts-and-bolts detailing, and I mean that literally. After you figure out the sizes of foundations, beams, columns, and bracing, you have to make sure they’re all connected properly so that the forces are transmitted. You have to draw sketches showing bolts, welds, screws, etc. It’s like putting a puzzle together. That part was HARD for me - I like the calculation part better. My husband likes the construction part better. </p>
<p>That is one appeal of structural engineering - it’s theoretical AND practical. Most engineers get to go on-site and inspect the project as it goes up, too, so you’re not always in the office.</p>