<p>i turned down petroleum engineering because of its insecure future and long shifts.
please don't go on like oil will last forever and all that,I'm done with that field!</p>
<p>i just wonder which 'engineering' major requires the engineers to work for the least number of hours?</p>
<p>also,what are the usual working hours for a normal engineering office job?</p>
<p>if you could break that down with respect to various fields,that would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>i know no one can be sure and it depends on other factors as well,but I just need approximate answers.</p>
<p>That question can’t be answered because it doesn’t really depend on the field. If you want to work the least number of hours, you should look for a job in the government. Expect to work 40 hours per week.</p>
<p>It will range, depending on the importance and urgency of the project(s) you’re working on. In my experience in civil engineering, expect somewhere between 40 and 50 per week. I was been on two projects (not concurrently) for a traffic engineering consulting firm where we worked up to 80 hrs/week at times. They lasted a few weeks.</p>
<p>A contractor for the government is often not allowed to work over 40 hours a week because there’s no money in the contract for overtime. However, where the government employees on the contract will get a paid holiday for federal holidays, sometimes, contractors are required to use a vacation day, or work comp time, to take off those holidays. This is not always the case, but on some projects my husband has been on, when there’s been a local holiday, he’s had to use vacation days for the days the facilities were closed, where the government employees did not. Also, at Christmas time, when there’s an employee Christmas party, the government employees are allowed to attend without loss of time, but the contractors are usually discouraged to go because they would have to use vacation time to attend the party.</p>
<p>Although you may initially earn less as a government employee than a contractor, in the end, you will be better off. You’ll advance quickly, have more job opportunities, and will get a nice pension at a relatively young age.</p>
<p>I’ve always felt like civil engineering was probably a good field, and a good government position for that would be the Army Corps of Engineers. Another one is probably Department of Transportation. Seems like there’s no shortage of road work going on in any city we visit or interstate we travel on. I don’t have any personal experience with it myself, but if you don’t want to do chem or petroleum, but still want to do engineering, that may be a field to look into.</p>
<p>The client for one of those projects was a law firm representing a group trying to open up a casino, and the other was for a multi-billion dollar expansion project, so there was a lot of money and time pressure involved. </p>
<p>I had also worked for a state DOT previously. The difference is night and day. While I do agree you’d work significantly less, I got tired of it quickly. Too much red tape, too hard to get anything done or make your own decisions. The atmosphere was not to my liking, but it may suit others.</p>
<p>Montegut “Although you may initially earn less as a government employee than a contractor, in the end, you will be better off. You’ll advance quickly, have more job opportunities, and will get a nice pension at a relatively young age.”</p>
<p>There are plenty of examples as you’ve noted. However, I don’t think the pension really applies for employees hired after 1986? or so. Govt workers have a FERS retirement system based upon 3 legs: social security, a 401K, and a small defined benefit plan. Obviously you can’t draw on social security or your 401K at a relatively young age. I don’t know the specifics on the defined benefit plan but you don’t get anything unless you stay with the govt for a long time. Best benefits for employees in the US are with the military.</p>
<p>Brother-in-law joined the govt as a senior engineer after a long career in private industry. He works a ton of overtime and doesn’t get extra pay for it but does get additional time off. Only problem with all that extra time is that there’s no time to take it. Compared to his previous career though the govt job is nicer overall. It doesn’t take long though for the best govt employees to start thinking that they could do a better job overall if they had their own government contracting company (charging more money, of course).</p>
<p>i am not at all sure but is it true that civil engineers don’t have fixed hours of work like petroleum engineers like they will have to work many more hours some days and less on others?</p>
<p>i guess it depends on the project but i am not even sure what i wrote is true.</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean. Everybody has defined “normal working hours,” but sometimes they may have to stay later to finish something up. This goes for most people, not just civil engineers. The normal business hours for the traffic engineering firm I had worked for was 9am-6pm (one hour for lunch).</p>
<p>I guess it depends which branch of civil you’re talking about. It’s definitely not structural. My husband and I have worked for several companies. At none of those jobs did we work only 40 hours a week. It’s crazy when projects have to go out. Even “just” drafting can mean long hours. I’m helping out a local firm with a Revit-drafted job. I worked at their office Thursday from 7:15 am until 8:30 pm. And it was my birthday!</p>
<p>I don’t think it will differ significantly across the branches; I still assert that it’s public sector vs. private sector. I can’t imagine a structural engineer in a government agency working much later past their normal business day unless there was a structural collapse or another emergency.</p>
<p>Former government employees I know who are drawing pensions are in their sixties. Some worked for the government, retired when they could, draw their pensions, and then get a job working as a contractor for the government. They are sought after employees because they have good connections with the government people and can help the contractor keep the contract, get more work, etc. </p>
<p>Being in the military also helps with getting both government and contractor work. I have a friend who got hired with TSA after 9/11, and was given credit for the time he served in the military to assign his rank and years experience. There are many former military that work for the government contractors at my husband’s company.</p>
<p>There must be some advantage, with regards to health or retirement benefits, to getting on with the government. Several contract employees in their late forties, early fifties, applied for and got many openings as government employees on projects in the same areas my husband works. Some even took a pay cut to do so, as they saw the long term benefits of retiring with the government.</p>