What do Civil Engineers do?

Engineering Guide and Review

What Do Civil Engineers Do?

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings.

Civil engineering is the oldest engineering discipline after military engineering, and it was defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. It is traditionally broken into several sub-disciplines including environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, municipal or urban engineering, water resources engineering, materials engineering, coastal engineering, surveying, and construction engineering. Civil engineering takes place on all levels: in the public sector from municipal through to federal levels, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies.

Civil engineering careers:

There is no one typical career path for civil engineers. Most engineering graduates start with jobs of low responsibility, and as they prove their competence, they are given more and more responsible tasks, but within each sub field of civil engineering, and even within different segments of the market within each branch, the details of a career path can vary. In some fields and firms, entry-level engineers are put to work primarily monitoring construction in the field, serving as the "eyes and ears" of more senior design engineers; while in other areas, entry-level engineers end up performing the more routine tasks of analysis or design and interpretation. More senior engineers can move into doing more complex analysis or design work, or management of more complex design projects, or management of other engineers, or into specialized consulting, including forensic engineering.