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<p>It is so a programming language, Mister Smarty Pants, and you absolutely won’t get laughed at. It’s a mathematical analysis platform <em>and</em> a programming language, and you can write code in MATLAB (which is specific to MATLAB, so it’s not like you’re using some other language within the program, even) to solve complex mathematical problems. MATLAB’s programming language is a lot like C. In grad school, I had to write a finite element analysis engine in MATLAB.</p>
<p>At any rate, if you learn MATLAB or Java or something… a language that’s widely used… then you’ll be good to go. Heck, civil engineers still use FORTRAN. It’s just useful to learn to <em>think</em> like a programmer, and be cognizant of object-oriented programming and how using modules can save you a heck of a lot of time and energy. </p>
<p>It’s a useful but tragically underutilized skill to have in civil engineering-- employers love to see that you know how to program, but they can’t figure out how to leverage your abilities so that you get to do something productive… But at least I can talk to our IT staff intelligently, and I know what to ask them when I want them to design computational or management tools for me.</p>