What Do Civil Engineers Do At Work?: Civil Engineering 2021

Today I wanted to answer the big question; What in the world do civil engineers do at work? Hopefully this will answer some of your questions and maybe even inspire you to pursue civil engineering in 2021. Add me on instagram: @kikoga if you'd like!

Civil engineering is very broad

Civil engineering not includes your normal sexy stuff: bridges, towers, highways and stadiums, but also exotic things like wastewater lines, soil engineering, and transportation etc. The idea behind civil engineering is to help build an environment where people can live more comfortably and efficiently.

With your degree, you can go two ways: Design and Construction

In design, you get to run calculations, and yes, design. As a structural designer, you’ll likely be given a concept from the architect and your job is to find a way to make it a reality through engineering. There’s a balance between the architect and the design engineer as the design engineer tries to execute the architect’s vision. Architect’s tend to like slender and sleek structural elements, but in a lot of cases they are not strong enough to actually hold up the structure.

In construction you get to do the fun part, you get to figure out how to build it. You get to be outside helping coordinate the work. You'll be asking yourself questions like: How many tower cranes will we need and what are the capacities of the largest lifts? Do I need to prefabricate concrete pieces to be more efficient? Construction engineers help execute the architect and design engineer’s plan from 2D to 3D.

A Typical Day

On the design side you will probably be at a computer or in an office for most of the day, running calculations and verifying design. You may have meetings with your client to make sure your design is meeting their needs. You will be able to make jobsite visits from time to time and see the progress of your project. If you have a huge deadline coming up you may have to work overtime, and depending on your company, you wont usually have to work weekends.

On the construction side your day will look pretty different. By 6:30-7AM you need to be on site. You will be outside doing QC and making sure what is getting installed is correct. After the workers leave at ~3:30 you will go back in the office and review drawings, emails, reviewing schedule and material inventory to make sure you have a good plan for the next day and weeks to come. Don’t be surprised if you work for a general contractor that you need to work for a minimum of 50 hours a week and work multiple weekends in a row.

You'll need to understand the business side

As much as engineers may want to stay within the comfort of design and calculations, there is a business side to everything. In design, their profit is driven by how many projects they can design. They allot a certain amount of time for design and assisting construction and hopefully they can execute the design for the project under that amount of time.

Construction engineering is similar to design in that if we execute the project in a quicker time frame, we make a profit. There are opportunities to sequence the work or come up with creative plans to more efficiently complete the work.

Teamwork Is Important

I think this ultimately ends up being the case in most professions, but in engineering you are never just designing or building for yourself. There’s always a team of people that need to work together to finish the project so to be the best engineer you can be, you need to be a team player. And more often than not, the team you need to consult with may not be engineers as well, so we need to play nice with others.

My advice to you:

Get the experience that will show you what you want to do
Experience is the most important thing when deciding your career. Without my internships, I would have never found my passion for construction engineering and honestly I probably would have ended up on more of the design side. Don’t be afraid to try different opportunities especially if you’re still in college because there are so many types of jobs that fall under civil engineering that you should be able to find one that suits your needs.

And if you’re currently majoring in civil engineering and maybe you’re not getting the best grades, but material really interests you and what I talked about sounds right up your alley, stick with it. Bigger companies will care about stuff like GPA, but there will be options at smaller companies that will help you gain the experience that will be much more valuable to the bigger employers later on. Even to just get your engineering degree will help you look better for jobs in the future even if you’re not in the industry because they know how much harder it is to get that degree. Hard work and passion will help you move up in your career so don’t get bogged down in your grades if you really love the material.

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