As the world continues to give out more and more human beings, technology will continue to grow and demands persist to rise. There will be a great need on maintaining connections between places as bridges and highway systems continue to exist, water treatment plants to support for people to have safe drinking water, buildings for shelter and security, and other energy needs to keep life rolling and going — this would mean a great need to what we call civil engineers.
Considered to be the oldest type, Civil engineering is held responsible in making our world a better place to live simply because it goes on a wide range of tasks such as designing, construction, research, planning, teaching, manufacturing, business or management. Civil engineers get an average yearly salary of $78,560, and are mostly working on firms, governments and constructions.
There are several areas when we talk about civil engineering:
Structural engineering. This focuses on bridges, buildings, amusement park rides and many other kinds of projects, designing them to support their own weight and the loads they carry, and able to go over extreme forces (wind, earthquakes, bombings, temperature, etc.)
Environmental engineering. These people go over physical, chemical and biological processes and apply them into systems to contradict pollution. They are the ones responsible for providing safe drinking water, cleaning up contaminated sites with hazardous materials, disposing of wastewater and managing solid wastes.
Geotechnical engineering. This is required in all aspects of civil engineering since most projects are supported by ground. This requires analysis of the properties of soil and rock that support and affect the behavior of structures soon to be built (e.g. tunnels, foundations and offshore platforms).
Water resources engineering. These people deal with the physical control of water (e.g. prevention of floods, supply of water and redirection of river systems). They design, construct and maintain hydroelectric power facilities, canals, dams, pipelines, pumping stations, locks, seaport facilities or even waterslides.
Transportation engineering. They make sure that transportation facilities serve their purpose efficiently and safely. Projects include airports, highways, railroads, mass transit systems and ports, improving traffic control and mass transit systems, and high-speed trains.
Construction engineering. Technical and mechanical application of their knowledge of construction methods and equipment plus principles of financing, planning and managing is used in this area to realize projects.
With this wide array of areas to deal with, no wonder civil engineering careers will increase much faster than the average for all occupations as years go by, the demand would continue to remain up. The U.S. Congress passed a new transportation funding bill which implies to increase by 40 percent the funding to rebuild 150,000 miles of roads. This automatically creates 1.4 million new jobs in the transportation construction industry since many engineering firms and state transportation departments have less staff.
As long as people and structures come and go, civil engineering will always be there. Now who says you’ll be having a hard time finding a job as a civil engineer? Not at all — the future of easy living lies in your hands!
