<p>I would appreciate any advises on advantages/disadvantages in any or all of the subfields of Civil Engineering major (job availability, future prospects, salary, job advancement, etc.) Please no answers such as "you need to follow what you feel like doing", that's understandable but features I listed in parenthesis as much important. </p>
<p>These are the subfields of Civil:</p>
<p>Construction Engineering and Management (prefer my primary)
Construction Material Engineering
Environmental Engineering
Hydraulic Engineering
Geotechnical Engineering
Structural Engineering (also considering)
Transportation Engineering (prefer my secondary)</p>
<p>Thank you in advance for all legit and adequate answers and would gladly appreciate to hear the voice of some of the PROS in those fields.</p>
<p>I work in construction management, after getting my degrees in civil engineering. I also worked for 2 years as a traffic engineering intern. </p>
<p>Construction management
Typically longer hours. If your role is in site supervision, you might work a night shift, depending on the needs of the project.
Typically starts out with similar salaries (maybe slightly higher) and tops out significantly higher. According to BLS, the top 10th percentile for construction manager salaries is $145k and the top 10th percentile for civil engineers is $115k.
Typically more stress. There’s a lot of pressure from many stakeholders to get the project completed on schedule and under budget. Millions of dollars are on the line.
It’s a somewhat less technical field, but requires good people skills.
Depending on your role, you may be working in the field on construction sites and not in an office.
Experience and performance is the most important factor for advancement, not your college degrees (though it does help). It used to be that you can get a job by having a lot of experience in construction, but in recent years, the industry has shifted towards hiring mostly people with college degrees in relevant majors.
You get to see tangible progress every day when you go home. You get to see first-hand what you’re building.</p>
<p>Depending on your personality and preferences, some of these can be considered advantages to some but disadvantages to others.</p>