 If you're a high school student thinking about the profession of civil engineering or a college student either starting a civil engineering program or thinking about doing so or a parent of a child interested in civil engineering, this video is for you. In this video, we are going to feature pieces of advice from practicing civil engineers explaining what civil engineering is and what opportunities the profession presents now and in the future. And please be sure to subscribe to this playlist because beyond this video, we're going to be visiting with civil engineers in their workplaces to show you what they actually do on the job. Let's do it! The way this episode will run is simple. I'm going to read through some advice and information on civil engineering for high school and college students interested in civil engineering. And I will also add my own comments and advice where I feel they would provide value. Here's our first piece of advice from Joshua, an engineering student, and this is an obvious place to start. He says, for me right now, my biggest challenge is I can't pay all the university fees which prevents me from studying at the university level. So whether you're a student or a parent of a high school student, start to think about the cost of a civil engineering degree. As you'll hear as we go through this episode, the value in civil engineering is that it's extremely diverse with different disciplines and types of work that you can do, which makes it a very stable career. However, be sure to do your research on the cost of a civil engineering degree up front. Next, here's advice from Michael Fabiano, Vice President of High Point Engineering. Civil engineering is a vast and varied field of work. At the undergraduate level, in my experience, you are not taught what types of companies do what types of work, and rarely is it the case that a student in college knows what type of civil engineering they will have a passion for. My suggestion is to intern at different companies, attend industry events, seek out industry information interviews, use your school resources to the fullest and start to build your network as early as possible. More than likely, you will start to eliminate those parts of the industry you know for sure you do not want to pursue, and sooner rather than later, the field of choice will emerge. What I love about Michael's suggestion is that there are many different disciplines in civil engineering, and often it is difficult for a recent graduate to see which one is the best place to start, or which one they might be passionate about. And this suggestion of interning at different companies and attending different events can certainly help you to make that decision process easier. As I mentioned earlier, we're planning to publish some videos on our YouTube channel where we visit with civil engineers in different sectors at their workplaces, so be sure to subscribe to this playlist if it's something that's of interest to you or recommend it to others. We also had comments from three or four other practicing engineers basically stating that interning is invaluable and that you need to experiment with interning at different companies in different situations early on in your career. Whether that be at the college level or even as a recent graduate. Next, here's some more advice on the diversity of work in civil engineering from James Smith who is a project manager. Civil engineering is a very diverse field. We do a lot more than bridges and buildings. In the world of civil engineering, there's something for everyone. Even in my graduating class in which we all took the same classes, my friends and I all do surprisingly different work. From bridges and buildings to roads and drainage, airports and cityscapes, environmental quality to oil and gas extraction and transmission, and oh so much more. Civil engineering is supposedly the second oldest profession and is truly the grandparent of all engineering. As such, all engineering can trace their roots to the diverse field of civil engineering. He also says civil engineering is about creative problem solving. No solution will work exactly for every scenario. Every problem is different and you have to find a solution that meets your design requirements, budgets, customer needs, wants and more. It can be challenging, but if you enjoy solving puzzles, civil engineering is a rewarding field. Civil engineering more than any other profession gives you the opportunity to see your designs come to life. This is probably my favorite part about civil engineering as opposed to other engineering fields. The key takeaway from the advice here from James is that civil engineering often falls under a broad stereotype of bridges and buildings. At least that's what I thought it was when I first heard about it and I know that many young students feel the same way. So I really like that James's comment dispels that. Next, here's advice from Ben Teustition, principal engineer with MBK engineers. Civil engineering is a people serving profession. That is what makes it both challenging and extremely rewarding at the same time. To excel in the profession, the development of strong technical and relational and communication soft skills is required. A career as a civil engineer is fulfilling in that you can solve challenging technical problems while providing important products and services for the community in what you live. I really love this advice from Ben. For me personally, this is exactly why I chose civil engineering because I wanted to work on projects that had an impact in the world. And also I wanted to work on projects that I could see being built and this really was one of the key factors in my decision. So I thank Ben for sharing this valuable advice. Now here's another piece of valuable advice from William Marenca, civil engineer practicing in land development. One thing is that there are so many different areas that they can specialize and focus their career on while being a civil engineer. This may be one of the most diverse fields in terms of where your career can take you as a civil engineer. The reason that this one piece of advice from William is so important in my opinion is because in the world we live in today that has a lot of variability. It's important to create stability in one's career. And since civil engineering is so varied and focuses really on a lot of the world's biggest challenges like traffic, climate change, lack of clean water, failing infrastructure. If you have a degree in civil engineering and you practice in one of these areas, you can fairly easily transition into another area of civil engineering. Now you may have to do some learning of course, but you have the basic education to do so. And in my opinion in today's world that flexibility is critical to career success. Next, here's a piece of advice from Jake Alley, a graduate structural engineer in the UK related to the size of companies you work for. Universities in the UK put a huge emphasis on large scale civil engineering companies. However, there are so many opportunities within smaller companies. Now, I totally agree with Jake here in that there are just as many opportunities with smaller companies in civil engineering than there are with bigger companies. And I wouldn't necessarily say more or less. I would just say there are different types of opportunities. For me, I started my career with a civil engineering firm of about five people and it gave me the opportunity to learn everything about the profession. However, that small firm was eventually acquired by a larger firm, which then gave me exposure to different opportunities. So the bottom line here is that it isn't necessarily better to work at a larger or smaller civil engineering firm. Just know that there are positive opportunities in each situation and by talking with people that work in both small and large companies, you can determine what those are. Next, here's a thought from Bill Levy, senior engineering manager on teamwork and engineering. In fact, this is how he poses the question to students. How many of you are on a team or like to play sports on teams? Civil engineering is the ultimate team activity. I as a geotechnical engineer always work with other engineering specialties, structural, environmental, mechanical, electrical, and so on. We work as a team to successfully design and build projects just like your school. Thank you, Bill. This is so true. At the Engineering Management Institute, one of our main offerings is people skills training for engineers. And the reason we provide this training is because engineers need to interact with people on a very regular basis in order to achieve success with their projects. In fact, I often speak at engineering schools and many of the students tell me that they are becoming an engineer because they're not comfortable speaking or writing. The first thing I say to them when I hear this is, you may have chosen the wrong profession because speaking, writing, and communicating overall is critical in the engineering profession, which involves so many teamwork activities. Next, here's advice from Irfan Alvi, President and Chief Engineer of Alvi Associates. And his advice is important because he has a daughter in high school. My daughter is in high school and I found that high school students rarely know much about civil engineering. High school students need to know that while they may think that interesting engineering mostly involves electronics, robotics, biotech, and other high-tech items, civil infrastructure has always been fundamental to the functioning of societies and it remains challenging and fascinating to work with water, air, soil, rock, timber, asphalt, and so on. Awesome stuff here from Irfan. If you really think about civil engineering at the core, it's about the earth. It's about serving people. And when you put those two things together, it can make for a very rewarding career. Now, here's some interesting advice from professional engineer Dave Urina. And this goes beyond just civil engineering, but what it takes if you become a consultant as a civil engineer, which many civil engineers do. Dave says, being as though most engineers go into consulting at some point in their careers, I think there are two main things high school students should know about civil engineering. Civil engineering consulting is a for-profit business and being a good consultant is a skill entirely of its own that most civil engineers take years to master. The qualities of a good consultant are, effectively and accurately tracks time, keeps a planner and manages their effort across various projects, prices their services conservatively enough based on projected time and materials, drafts comprehensive yet succinct proposals and contract documents, learns to under promise and over deliver is an effective communicator. For example, knows when to email versus when to pick up the phone and call someone. There's much more, but I think that these are the key basics. I really like this comment from Dave because he has taken it to the next level. While you heard a lot about civil engineering already in this episode in terms of what it is, Dave again emphasizes the diversity of civil engineering here in that you might work for a government agency or you might be a private consultant working for a for-profit company, which many civil engineers end up doing at some point in their careers. And if you want to do that successfully, you can follow some of Dave's advice. Next, here's a specific plug for water and wastewater from John LaBersen. The water and wastewater sector has become a high-tech, rapidly growing, secure industry that integrates the most exciting new developments from a range of disciplines including civil, chemical and mechanical engineering, biology, material science, systems engineering, renewable energy, AI, IOT, ecology, management and more all in order to provide an invaluable service to society. Engineers working in our industry have huge opportunities for advancement, consistent employment and will never be bored. Moreover, our industry is working hard to meet new inclusion goals and is actively seeking and recruiting a diverse crop of new employees. It's a great industry to join. So there's a good plug for the water and wastewater industry. However, I'm sure that many of the things John mentioned are applicable to different disciplines of civil engineering. You just have to do some research on the different areas in where you're considering practicing. Next, here's a real important piece of advice from Rachel Kunkel, staff engineer with regards to master's degrees in engineering. It's extremely valuable to get some work experience before getting a master's degree. It helps you better understand topics covered in your master's program and it gives you perspective on what you're really going to be asked to do with the information. This is also important because the work experience will show what the majority of your day will be spent doing. There may be more writing, CAD or field work than the engineering curriculum first led you to believe. I totally agree with Rachel here and in my own career I went part-time for my master's in civil engineering while I was practicing civil engineering for a private consulting firm. And it was extremely helpful that I was able to see how the concepts at school related to my day-to-day job. I also think it's valuable advice because as you've heard already in this episode there are many different disciplines of civil engineering. So if you seek a master's degree in a specific discipline of civil engineering before actually practicing that discipline and then come to find out that you prefer to switch into another discipline of engineering some of that time and money spent on that master's degree could have been directed elsewhere. Next we have some interesting advice related to the courses you take in school from civil engineer Stephen Barr. It's all about fundamentals. Having a very strong foundation in subjects such as calculus and physics makes being an engineering major much easier. Unfortunately most college programs gloss over the first two years which doesn't set students up for success. I'd even argue that the first two years as an engineering major will have a bigger impact on your success than your final two. Also most colleges don't do a good job of teaching AutoCAD to the point where engineers need to be ready for industry. Any civil engineering student should take part in as many projects involving this software as possible. Great advice here from Stephen and really I think the key takeaway here is the AutoCAD part of it. Whether it's AutoCAD for you or a new software that comes out being aware of the relevant software in the civil engineering world can be a huge advantage to you as a recent graduate because many of the experienced professionals won't have that knowledge and so that can definitely differentiate you and get you into a really good company early on in your career. Now before we wrap this one up we had some great advice that we listed here in this episode from different civil engineering professionals that are currently practicing. However we also had several other civil engineers who mentioned communication so rather than walking through their comments I just want to talk a little bit about this in general. As important as your technical skills are as a civil engineering you have to communicate with people whether that be other technical professionals or the public. We mentioned this several times in this episode that civil engineering is a profession that serves the public and when you're out in public speaking with people you need to be able to communicate the benefits of your projects to the people. So what does that mean for you as a student? It means practice your speaking skills. Many high schools have public speaking clubs, join a club and get up in front of an audience, volunteer to speak in public anywhere that you can whether that means being a lecturer at your church or coaching younger kids in athletics. However you can work on your communication skills work on them because they are a critical component of civil engineering. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did please like the video and subscribe to this playlist because we are in the process of working on some videos where we will follow civil engineers in different disciplines throughout their work days to show you what civil engineers actually do on the job. Until then keep engineering your own success. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the civil engineering podcast on YouTube produced by the Engineering Management Institute. We're always looking for new ways to help engineers become effective managers and leaders. You can view all of our content on our website at engineeringmanagementinstitute.org and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for our weekly videos. Until next time please continue to engineer your own success.