<p>Will I have opportunities to work in other countries after I get my civil eng. degree?</p>
<p>there’s the obvious Arabian gulf countries, UAE (dubai & abu dhabi), Qatar (Doha), they’re doing insaaaaane stuff over.</p>
<p>Although this is a dumb Q, I will be tracking this to see some more responses.
I feel that the ME is doing stuff TOO crazy for entry-level people, don’t you think?</p>
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<p>No, the high-level firms throw their graduate engineers face-first into the most complicated projects to see how they’ll do. My firm had me design a two-level elevated pedestrian bridge that goes over a major thoroughfare and light rail system, curved around in a plan-view arc that has seven radiuses, and connected two existing buildings to a third proposed one. The bridge was divided into two sections, and each section only got two columns that were at odd locations so that all of the structure was off-balance, and I had to design it so that if a herd of people jumped up and down at the midpoint of the bridge section, that it wouldn’t cause enough vibration to bother a person sitting at any of the other midspans. It was crazy-difficult. They handed it to me on my first day and laughed.</p>
<p>There are two types of “working in other countries.” The first type is where you’re working for an American company, and you’re working from the US on a project that’s in another country. In the top-notch firms, that’s pretty common. I’ve done a seismic review on a building in Mexico, I’ve done a project in Canada, and I’ve designed a parking garage in the Bahamas (I begged to do construction administration, but the project’s on hold right now… rats). Friends have worked on a bunch of Middle East projects.</p>
<p>The other type of “work outside of the country” is where you’re literally setting up shop in another country, and that’s possible to do, too. I’ve got two civil engineering friends who’re both living in Australia right now. One got hired by an Australian company, the other worked in the Chicago office of a multi-national civil engineering firm (one of the big conglomerates) and got an offer to move to Sydney for a few years and work out of their office there, so she took it. You have to be careful with that, though, because a lot of civil engineering depends upon building codes, and licensure, and if you’re not careful, you could make it tough for yourself if you ever plan on moving back to the States. You just have to plan things well, but it’s doable.</p>