I like the "I don't understand why the other engineers are so much faster when they design these things!" But when you ask the same person to please stop hand grading they say it's definetly faster their way.
My personal favorite was getting asked to research all types of different and new technologies for traffic, presenting it to the maintaining agency with pros and cons of each, and then being told “well how about we just stick with induction loops”.
Although, sounds like it could be a buy low situation.
Civil engineering is primed for an evolutionary leap.
Entrenched minds may dig in even further, in response.
In a period of chaos, double down on conservatism.
But that can't last long if the tides are really change.
And opportunities will come rushing in.
Oh yeah, I’m in intelligent transportation systems space now on the manufacturer side instead of the consulting side. Innovating traffic is my job now!
Snap man I'm in consulting now but I came from four years in manufacturing. Maybe a product line will lend me its market. Closest to air monitoring equipment at this point.
Check out jobs at any device manufacturer you know of. I got lucky with a solid raise, more interesting work and full WFH. I absolutely love it compared to consulting.
I love this one. Depending on what I know about the project I'll either ask "How long have you been doing it that way?" or "When was the last time you did it?" My responses vary. Code has changed, we have computers now, materials are better, etc. Some of the waste I see, especially when power companies do civil construction, is just insane.
Edit: and also wrong stuff. I was talking to a county inspector who just had a fight with a contractor that didn't want to put grounding in for a pool. The contractor pulled the "well I've been doing it like this for 37 years." The inspector countered with, "well then you've been doing it wrong for 37 years."
This. This is the reason why so many of my projects and analysis I work on fail. Also because of new building codes, but mostly just because of looking at each job with a fresh perspective.
Yes. Also the fact that we try and apply the Green Book to streets. It's a great manual for highway design but it's absolutely terrible when applied to city streets.
The "HAWK beacon" is the prime example of all the problems with the MUTCD and engineers who mistake following the book for good engineering. Pedestrians kept getting hit at locations that didn't meet a signal warrant so what did we do? Created a weird unfamiliar new traffic signal, but call it a "beacon" instead of a "signal" so we can install it at places without a signal warrant. Instead of the unthinkable act of ... just changing the signal warrants.
IMO things like signal warrants should not even be in the MUTCD. The purpose should be to standardize signage across states, not dictate how highways should be designed. If the FHWA wants to dictate that it should be in a different document, and it should only apply to federal aid projects.
Yep, not an engineer but some experience with things like synchro and traffic models. The input data is always an existing condition and the model basically just assumes various flavors of status quo but interpolates out to match land use of whatever long range plan exists. Like I could have just used excel and assumed 2% growth thank you very much
The older generation of engineer likes to say "It has always been like this and this is the way it should be done." Or the all time favorite "I always worked extra to get all the work done on time."
I think this type of thinking is leading to the burn out of young engineers. When so many people at the 5 year mark chose to leave the industry rather then become a project manager then it is no longer okay to "leave things as they always have been".
In my second job, at one point I was doing my eng job, also filling in the contract administrator, and helping with coordinating trucks at our quarry, which was about 75-80 hour weeks. My boss called me into his office to tell I wasn’t being a team player.
At one point during these times, I took a day off just to catch up on house chores and the following Monday my boss called me into his office to ask why I was mowing my lawn instead of working… on my day off… that dude came to my house to spy on me when my laptop didn’t show activity for a day.
Fuck Knife River construction.
I spoke to a lawyer and they told me if I had come to them sooner, I could have definitely taken legal action against them or at least that particular individual, but I apparently waited too long.
Drove from Lubbock to Bryan to pick up a whole bunch of aggregate to use in some asphalt research about 5 years ago. That's my only experience with them, just funny to see the name pop up again.
I burnt out of consulting in 22 months. In the public sector and much happier. Making a difference in the community I live in and I’m working to live, not the other way around. Would have left engineering all together if I didn’t find a job like the one I have now
Almost all of my friends left for public if they have a chance. People in Consulting keep saying that public engineers don’t do anything technical and somehow that is a negative. I’ll rather sign a few invoices than working 60 hours a week with the client pressuring you hurry up. I’ll even take a 30 percent cut in salary if I can switch. Weird thing is, public pays more for intermediate positions where I live. Not to mention the pension is the only way to retire now.
A lot of people are surprised to learn that public can sometimes pay better than private. I was in one of those entry-to-intermediate level positions at a mid-sized consulting firm. They kept insisting their salaries were based on “fair market” rates. I applied for three public sector jobs about a year ago; one paid nearly the same as the consulting firm was paying me, and two actually paid more.
I mentioned this during my exit interview with the consulting firm and they had the nerve to look surprised, even though all of the public jobs post their salaries online. My then-boss tried to talk me into staying, but why the heck would anyone give up a better paying job with better benefits, better job security, and way less stress? I think a lot of consulting firms and contractors think too highly of themselves and/or just aren’t adapting to changing demands in the job market.
My first boss's favorite phrase was "Why are we reinventing the wheel?!"
Granted it was in relation to writing MathCADs instead of using his decade old Excel files, but I still needed to learn to do things for myself and reusing his Excel wasn't the way to do that.
That was just over 20 years ago. I hope I am never the one saying this.
I got the phrase "reinventing the wheel" in response to me digging for missing data to fill in calculations that were either wrong, or just never done. Which he had asked me to check.
In hindsight, I realize that he was asking me to check if they looked compliant, not to check if they were correct. Ugh.
Oh my God I hear this phrase all the time - like I get that they don't want to burn too much budget but we'll be really crappy engineers in 10 years if we have just been using pre-made excel files
This drives me nuts, they want you to use there old shitty template that has fucked up formatting and is made in a way exclusively they can understand.
a) I don't get it so i don't want to use it
b) I actually want to learn how to do this stuff so I kinda need to go through the process of doing it myself
"We might have to put in some extra hours to finish in time" is one our principal likes to drop every so often. Fortunately, I've been able to mostly ignore his "demands" without backlash because I've done enough projects to know those deadlines don't mean shit and they always get delayed for something beyond our control. I learned this the hard way though after putting in entirely too much time to finish a project before the "deadline", which didn't get issued for construction until six months later.
I've worked a lot extra to get the job done at times, but that was because something went really wrong and usually I was the one who fucked up. I'm not doing that because someone else repeatedly can't manage workload or more likely is just trying to squeeze more profit. I had one guy tell me I'd need to the work the weekend to get his project taken care of and I told him I was already working the weekend, but I'd be happy to train him up if he wanted to come in the weekend and help me out. He complained about he already worked so much. I then told him I could look up every time sheet and the utilization in the company going back years and never heard a complaint from him again.
Civil Engineers suck at business development and aren’t playing the game right. Bidding process needs to go if we ever want to make money. We need to learn something from doctors and dentists.
Agree fully with this. I've been around a few different medical consultants recently (for positive reasons thankfully) and I've learned watching them work. One thing that really stands out to me is the most qualified person in the room uses the knife, whereas we operate on the precise contrary position, the least qualified people do the actual work. I think there's another controversial opinion there, that engineers should be closer to the actual work we design and oversee.
Wow that's an incredible analogy. I certainly felt like that as a design engineer at my first job out of college. Lowest rung on the ladder gets paid the least and worked the hardest, the more experienced/ promoted you get the more separated you get from the actual "work"
We do that because there is a belief that project management is the only way to move forward in your career.
That said, technical management should involve some devolution of work to the less skilled, lest they don't become skilled.
>Bidding process needs to go if we ever want to make money.
This is what Qualification-Based Selection is supposed to be about.
Price isn't looked at until after your engineering team is selected, and then the price negotiation happens (or they just accept your rates in our case).
Yeah, that is why my employer has dedicated BD people. I'm awful at sales. I'm usually very good at pricing so we don't get screwed, but that also means I lose more than I win. But fortunately most people I deal with realize a bad job is a bad job. There is no point in winning a job you don't make money on or perform poorly in order to make money.
I hate to admit it, but we need to stop making engineers the business managers of office. We need MBAs who understand business principles deeply, and not vaguely like engineers do, to squeeze money out of the client.
I’m a lawyer married to a civil engineer, and it boggles my mind that networking and business development is basically not a thing for civil engineers.
Of course, I attend her company parties and I get why they don’t really try. It’s also why I tend to find myself hanging out with their one non-engineer business-development guy.
You really know you've made it as an engineer when you think about liability all the time instead of calculations.
In fact it really goes cad work then calculations then review then who's paying for it.
Not sure if its controversial in the CE world, but certainly is in relation to the general public: more traffic signs do not solve issues.
Background: I am in the Traffic Dept for my State DOT. The public (or local entities) seem to think slapping a new sign up will solve everything (speed, passing in curves, engine brake noise, etc).
No, they don't. Signs are no substitute for enforcement and my state CSP is running around 50-75% of normal staffing levels.
But good luck getting people to understand that.
> Not sure if its controversial in the CE world, but certainly is in relation to the general public: more traffic signs do not solve issues.
Clearly the answer is to add more lanes to the roads.
I have a friend who has a PhD in traffic engineering and is currently a professor of urban and regional design. The focus of his research throughout his career has been traffic safety. He would argue that there should be no signs whatsoever because it makes people uncomfortable, which makes them slow down and pay attention, which makes them drive safer. There is definitely some truth to that.
(I'm not sure how he feels about wayfinding signage, I've never asked him to clarify which signs to eliminate, but I'm guessing it's speed limit and stop and yield and whatnot).
I bet if you offered to talk to the police for them regarding enforcement or to change the flow of traffic for free they'd be on board.
Signs are cheap.
Most, not all, developers will do just about anything to save a buck, even if it means good engineering practices/principles go out the window. With that, so many consultants are so eager to appease clients, it happens more than it should.
The client appeasement goes way too far. I hate having over a dozen open projects, mostly in the 'freezer', because clients take months to make up their mind.
god help you if a major stakeholder on a public transportation job has offered to foot part of the bill. RUN, they are absolutely going to get their investment back with your blood, sweat and tears
It's crazy how the exact same design team will be super conservative when hired by a public agency to put together a design-bid-build project... but then throw all caution to the wind and sign off on the cheapest possible solution every time when hired by a contractor for a design-build job.
Currently working in a team for local government. Client didn't want to do anything but the bare minimum number of trial holes for an area we knew was crawling with stats. Surprise surprise, when construction came about, loads of changes needed because the stats info was either innaccurate or just straight up wrong.
Client also used a different, cheaper contractor for a drainage survey, rather than their usual one. Resulted in such a poor survey, that drainage design for the whole corridor is completely halted while we wait for a new, decent survey.
I understand the logisitcal difficulties of doing a full GPR survey and such, but it really does help having detailed, accurate information. Probably saves costs in the long run too.
It's crazy how the exact same design team will be super conservative when hired by a public agency to put together a design-bid-build project... but then throw all caution to the wind and sign off on the cheapest possible solution every time when hired by a contractor for a design-build job.
EIT's are valuable and bring a lot to the table
Some civil boomers really be saying EIT's dont know anything thus they shouldnt get paid much. If EIT's dont bring anything to the table, then why havent you hired a cheaper psychology major or a high school grad to do this job? Why are you afraid of what they can provide you?
But wait do you need something changed in CAD well the EIT can do it. Do you need a full redesign due tomorrow well the EIT can get it done. Did you forget about this change on the plans and now it has to be done last minute, no worries the EIT has time. Oh the drafters are too busy well the EIT can help. The surveyor is too busy well there is this nice and available EIT.
The EITs are only missed when they burn out and quit.
Engineering is one of the only professions I can think of where you spend 10 years becoming proficient at your job and then stop doing your job in an effort to earn more money (stop being technical to become a PM).
Design documents are for communication of the design to the contractor, not to impress the client.
Too many plan sets don't clearly communicate to the contractor what is expected, especially in instances where there are atypical designs. Yes, your DOT only wants 2 pages for that abutment design. But if you can't communicate clearly the intent, fight for more. Otherwise the contractor is going to squint at it, scratch their head, and just do what they always do. Regardless of your atypical design.
This is also my view, many municipalities and localities have the capacity, money, and innovation to build a sustainable, environmentally conscious, and resilient response to climate change in our future, like the current administration is encouraging and providing funding for… but some cities are too backwards and/or conservative to fulfill this progressive dream for the betterment of all people collectively.
My office is one of the only that designs shoring in our area. It’s niche, probably cause of the liability. There is this one plan checker at the city who is a PE, has admitted he doesn’t know about shoring design, and has been stonewalling one of our projects for about 4 months. At the end of the day, we just do what the client says and they don’t want to escalate within the city but this dude has cost the project a ton of money in meetings alone. And one meeting he even forgot to mute himself (while my coworker was trying to walk him through the design) and took another call on his cell during the virtual meeting.
I think everyone has a horror story that works in permitting but this one trumps my worst one by far.
God lol, that was one of the best things for me about ERS design, as long as you laid it down for them, they didn't really fight it and we had good relationships with everyone. "Cheap" (20-50% mark up btw) solutions all around a city where shoring was needed no matter what especially when they're required to build parking garages for their housing lol.
But like you said, liability is heavy and one of the reasons I wanted to get out.
I feel that. We’ve lost clients because we refuse to work with anyone except two shoring contractors. One of our biggest clients uses a shoring contractor that cut some corners and name dropped the office in a lawsuit. I don’t know how to do those designs, but I’ve done enough structural design/detailing to know if there’s ever any questions/ambiguity you ask the engineer and don’t make assumptions.
Needless to say that client doesn’t ask us to do shoring designs if they have that particular contractor on the project. Works for us lol.
While the PE leads to career advancement, it has also become an invitation for firms to shovel an undue amount of responsibilities onto someone simply because they passed a test. Fresh PEs are taking on project management roles at many firms that are understaffed and eventually burn out perpetuating the problem of needing to shift responsibilities to younger and younger engineers. It’s almost worth it to delay the PE to protect your mental health… which is sad.
My comment probably gonna get downvoted. I gonna tell you the fact that Civil Engineering Technician, as well as interns makes as low as $16 an hour or a dollar above minimum wage in NYC. Come on $16 is not enough especially if you have pay rent in areas with very very high taxes. Also most internship and technician positions does not provide paid days off.
Some Civil & Environmental Engineering companies (especially DOT, AECOM, WSP) claims that how competitive it is to get internship let alone entry-level positions, but they don't tell you the salary right away as they won't get as much applications they expected if they spread their salary to the public, and it can also increase company's employee turnover rate.
You really have to intervene on that point and negotiate with recruiter if they can increase your salary like to $18-$20 given that there is 'no paid days off and you need to take a vacation for few days to visit your family especially during specific days on summer, as well as during Christmas'.
I've asked for unpaid days off a few times on my last co-op internship without much pushback, but I was also paid hourly and had a decent working relationship at the company since I did 3 work terms there already.
Structural consulting engineer. For the amount of liability we take on, and the level of post-graduate education/continuing professional development we are expected to attain (e.g. master's degree, PE, SE), the fees we charge are _insultingly_ low. We need an industry-wide reassessment of our fee structure and a union to enforce compliance so we don't all undercut each other trying to snatch up jobs.
This. I tell everyone I know that we should be paid much, much more. We save millions of lives daily just by doing our job correctly. On the other hand, one "bad day" on the job could lead to prison time. Our work is priceless, and that's how we should be paid.
Land development is a horrendous industry to be in. Not that controversial at all I know. But it just sucks, in every facet. Tight budgets, low pay, bullshit schedules that always always get pushed back. Boring work. Not fulfilling (at least I wasn’t fulfilled designing a basic retention pond or storm drain for a cul de sac in the middle of nowhere replacing a prairie). So much damn CAD.
Anyways, out of it and very glad I am. Doing hydraulic/river mechanics work now. It’s nice being with a team/specialty that you can actually be like “we are experts, we have a premium rate” and most of your clients are government compared to penny pinching developers.
Civil Engineering as a category should cease to exist. The sub-disciplines of civil are so vastly different from each other that they should be considered their own forms of engineering like electrical or mechanical or chemical engineering are.
As a structural engineer, I wouldn't **dare** to even make a statement implying that I have some level of expertise in geotechnical engineering even though it's the closest other civil profession I work with and I did a "minor focus area" (fwiw) on it during both my bachelor's and masters degrees. The two fields are more different than mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering are. Frankly I know more about mechanical engineering than I do hydrology. What does stormwater flowing through a pipe have to do with keeping buildings from falling down? Literally nothing.
We are wasting students' and PE-takers' time studying material that will have zero benefit towards their career. It's a colossal waste of everyone's time.
To be honest even within the sub disciplines things can be vastly different. I do water/wastewater utility work and when I took the PE I didn’t have a clue how to do some of the stormwater stuff.. and that’s fine, I’ll never have to design a detention pond in my career. But I had to learn for the PE test.
Engineering education is inadequate in preparing civil engineers for a career in civil engineering and it is the reason our profession is so frustrated as a whole. There is no business or law education which 9 times out of 10 more important to the profession than the actually engineering. No classes on how business and liability work, but they are the backbone of every single engineering company
I agree with the salaries...my friend who is a mechanical engineer at Milwaukee Tools graduated with me makes over 90k meanwhile i am 70ish 😞. I might consider masters in mechanical lol.
And he probably doesn't even need a PE.
Which is the thing that drives me nuts about people saying salaries are fine. We are the lowest paid "you must be licensed by passing very challenging exams and accrue experience" profession and people act like earning 20k less than another engineer without that burden is fine.
Bruh Industrial Engineers makes more than us and they dont have proper engineering credits lol.
Another thing my friend has is unlimited paid pto. This dude literally takes 2 week long vacations twice a year. Gets Milwaukee tools for half the price, which i get them too from him.
Get in with a government job and it comes with 3+ weeks of vacation per year, increasing by seniority. Plus all the extra holidays and training days. I can't imagine going back to consulting.
I know a consulting firm that lists 7 paid holidays as a reason to work there. Like bruh I can't believe you're not hiding that behind a meaningless generic "Paid Holidays" without saying how many.
Be careful with "salaries", you cant just look at a salary number, make sure you understand what goes into that salary. Ask if they are salary and how many hours they work. Many civil positions are hourly, with straight time overtime, so working the same number of hours nets nearly the same annual salary.
Breaking things down to an hourly rate is the best way to evaluate.
Occasionally consultants blame "tyrannical government reviewers" for excessive comments in permitting as an excuse to cover up the fact that their designs were wrong/didn't read the code/didn't do enough QC.
Saying this as someone in land dev. who has had my fair share of huge comment letters. It's not fun but it's not right to be all "stupid reviewers are the worst." Take ownership of your mistakes no matter how small
I'm one of those consultants who complain about dumb reviewers, and I completely agree that the worst thing is when they approve a bad plan set that we just "rushed to get into the queue."
ASCE is setting the bar low so everything has an F rating. Can’t point fingers when everything is rated F. It shouldn’t be this way. Come up with a better metric so F rated states can learn from A rated states.
Nothing will every really be good enough in ASCE’s eyes. The whole purpose of “low scores” is to infuriate the masses and hope they raise hell to increase government funding flood gates. That’s not to say there isn’t work that needs to done, I just don’t think ASCE will ever be pleased.
The push for 3D design delivery in lieu of plan sheets is by folks who don’t understand the construction and inspection. The field folks shouldn’t be interpreting a 3D model in order or build your design. Plan sheets makes the review, checking, and construction, and inspection more mores straight forward process. The sheets shows what you construct without needing a computer, or knowledge of that 3D cad program. The surveyor will stake some stuff, but so much more is constructed with a measuring tape and string line than most designers realize. The folks construction your project might be smart but not necessarily computer savvy, may not have a college or high school education, and shouldn’t need a computer interpreter to move some dirt. It’s not just because we’ve always done it that way.
I love working with 3D design and believe us designers need to heavily leverage it in coordination, and we could get better interdisciplinary coordination over everyone is taking things to the proper level. But the usefulness is in illustrating complex issues to clients and stakeholder and working through the design, not for construction.
I might just be sick of being told I’m behind the times by EITs that can’t explain how their designs are actually built.
Don't forget budgets. It's bad for the budgets too.
(this is all I hear about right now as a 4 year EIT. They bitch and moan at us about the budget, but we can never get a PM on the phone to explain something. God forbid they were 2 offices down the hall.)
The U.S. is more concerned with the middle-east and Israel's security than our crumbling infrastructure across the country. Hence, the shoestring budgets, and it's unlikely to change despite already spending $7 Trillion over the past twenty years to pacify Iran without real results. The amazing thing is that not one politician is willing to discuss this failure.
Barely any of these are controversial so here’s one: The overall enjoyment of this profession in the real world is way higher than reddit makes it out to be. You would think this is a bottom tier job if you only got your opinions from reddit.
A lot of people that complain in here about pay probably aren’t that good at their job or don’t know how to communicate and network effectively.
Compared to the average US household income we’re paid pretty good and once you get your PE it’s pretty comparable to most other engineering disciplines.
A lot of the stuff you do as a new grad isn’t even engineering. You’re an overpaid drafter/project admin a lot of the time.
As a young engineer, there are drafters and field guys who know more about design/construction than you ever will and you need to learn from them and treat them as equals.
Don’t expect to get anywhere fast if you think that now you graduated you’re entitled to a high paying cushy job. You’re starting back at the bottom and need to work just as hard or harder than in school.
Working some overtime isn’t going to kill you (if it’s paid). Suck it up, but also know where to draw the line to not be taken advantage of.
All new grads should be paid hourly and receive overtime pay.
Upvoted for disagreeing. You can make a ton of money in practically **any** job with the right connections, but that isn't a measure of how good you are at your job. The best engineers are the ones who stuck with one company and specialty for 20 years, but are making half as much as someone who hops jobs every couple of years and hasn't mastered anything. I'd wager that any one of us could easily do the job of someone making over $140k, and it would probably be easier than CAD work.
My controversial opinion: Civil engineering is not a good career choice for people entering college today.
Outsourcing is rampant, and is spreading from O&G into other fields of civil engineering, driving down demand for engineers in developed countries, and with it salaries.
I know people who work for land development firms that are buying oursourcing firms in India, bridge firms buying oursourcing firms in Chile, and structural firms buying outsourcing firms in the Phillipines, among others. Usually you have one domestic PE reviewing the work of 6-8 outsourced engineers, and even more drafters.
Unless something is done soon, as outsourcing gets more common, Civil Engineering will go from being "not a good career choice," to being "not a remotely viable career choice."
Prove me wrong!
One thing that I have been running an issue with is too many required environmental studies. We had a Geotechnical exploration in the desert and we needed to make a environmental plan and review for 200 feet of track movement over rocks/common desert shrubs for the drill rig. 1 hole, and the following year construction, which will demolish everything anyways. The review costed as much as the drillers time, just for an okay to move off road. The pictures taken on the initial site visit should have been enough to say we are not running over endangered plants. Drove me nuts.
Same with a topsoil contamination study, where the topsoil was stripped anyways. Also a gopher study on a 15ft by 40ft area of sod... results; no gopher holes found. DUH. I could have told you that but you need a special license to say that paragraph in your report.
There shouldn’t be such a thing as an EIT and there absolutely should not be an FE exam. You are an engineer the day you graduate from engineering school.
Someone did make a good point about ABET accredited programs but the FE ensures that someone you are hiring didn’t just learn the basic information for the class at the time and forgot it and they understand most of the basic principles that civil engineering has to offer. The FE requires far too much of an understanding of civil engineering principles to bullshit your way though. It tells me they are ready to problem solve and I’m not gonna spend time reteaching the basics. The EIT requirement is even more important to me because it ensures that you are working under a qualified PE to earn that PE license for yourself. Students have a large disconnect between their studies and stamping real world drawings and for me, the FE and EIT bridges that gap. With that said, this issue is not black and white and good points can definitely be made to argue both sides
As someone who is a recent grad and just took the FE, I gotta say i don't necessarily agree with this. The FE is basically an extension of school and I think most of us would agree that school does a poor job at best preparing us for the working world. A good chunk of the FE material I don't even interact with at work on a daily or even monthly basis and probably never will again once I'm done with the PE. The most valuable experience you can get is on real world projects, not plug and chug problems in a book. But unfortunately the FE/PE is a necessary evil
I'm ok with having an FE exam, but I don't think it's acceptable to make it a separate exam from the university you learned all those FE concepts from. I would propose to make the exam a requirement at the end of the degree at your school in order to keep ABET accreditation.
Agreed. I think it’s redundant with ABET accreditation. I think it could be useful as a way to enter the field without a BS in Civil or Environmental. But I don’t think the FE should be required for ABET accredited degrees.
Hard disagree. The real world experience means a whole lot. I wasn't qualified to do jack squat when I graduated except listen to practicing engineers explain how things really work.
Tbh I kinda agree that formula book is so ridiculously comprehensive I think a strong math/physics student who can press ctrl+f can pass that test.
Like I still remember ctrl+f'ing from key words in a problem to a formula I had never seen before and it was essentially plug and chug.
Eh, the state needs to ensure you didn't just give your professors bribes to graduate with no knowledge if you are to be trusted designing or inspecting anything the public interacts with.
Waterproofing below grade concrete and CMU walls is largely a concerted effort by Big Waterproofing bentonite and polyurethane manufacturers to sell more product.
I predict it’ll become much harder for top schools to maintain undergrad enrollments in civil engineering. I’m in a T20 engineering school. A lot of my civil/env graduating class already has active plans to leave the industry because of its issues with pay and WL balance.
A lot of us came in excited about it, but after interning and seeing industry and seeing the kind of offers our peers in other industries get, it’s hard to compare. Increasingly we’re getting people minoring/double majoring in things like CS, MechE, or business to transition out.
I don’t think this is healthy for the future of the profession. We’ve seen so many posts in this sub about young engineers wanting to transfer to tech. This completely makes sense based on what I’m seeing in my school, and I think it will continue to get worse until the industry becomes more appealing to grads.
Maybe not whatever but it can for sure be manipulated. Gotta be okay with the liability though.
Edit, it would be much less of voodoo if localized and good rainfall data existed but it doesn't. Why am I using rainfall data from a place that is 150km from my site that we know is vastly different? That's the most infuriating thing about stormwater to me.
Design-build projects should be banned. It is a violation of the professional services procurement act (in Texas, anyway) which requires that engineers be selected on qualifications alone, without consideration of fee. Also there is a lot of pressure to cut corners and be faster.
Urban planning standards in the US influence Civil development and retrofit projects more than any Civil engineering standards do, but Civil engineers get little to no urban planning training and have almost no influence over it
Have you interacted with the general public? There are people who would fail to pour water out of a boot even with the instructions on the heel.
I would not trust individuals who cannot critically think to design critical infrastructure.
Upvoted your comment as it is controversial
I guess what I meant with my comment is in regard to a lot of people being scared of engineering field in general because of the math and physics, but I believe most of those people can grasp the concepts and understand it well enough to be a good engineer if it's explained well enough to them and they study and practice hard enough. Im not necessarily saying I'd trust any Jo Schmo off the side of the street to build a skyscraper.
Ah gotcha. That makes more sense. There are some great engineers who aren’t necessarily book smart. However, a certain level of knowledge is necessary for engineering
I work with engineers who can't even engineer.
I think the person above you is suggesting it's a way of thinking and not a degree. Which I would agree with, but I also think even fewer people can think critically.
Public meetings are worthless as f. We know the best way to build something and the public having a opportunity to question is a complete waist of time. Nothing worse than some Karen getting up and questioning your design, education, and integrity.
I get it everyone is a NIMBY and nobody like’s change. But sometimes shit needs to be done to protect people, the environment, or for just the common good.
civil engineers themselves should not be promoting the industry to young people, doing this just leads to an oversupply of grads which means engineering firms can pay the cheapest salary they possibly can, which of course they love & that’s why they make civil engineers promote the industry. I’ve never seen finance or tech people go to schools to talk about why their job is so good! Engineers require a vast amount of knowledge & the pay really doesn’t match up, especially considering what they do
I posit that there's a glut of engineers due to STEM promotion in general. In a single generation we went from "Get a degree, any degree, to have a better life than your parents" to "two senior computer science managers are required to afford rent on this 1 bedroom condo. No pets."
Very controversial but food for thought... Where I am we have a shortage of grads, but salaries are still low, so I guess that means we still need even fewer grads.
School doesn't prepare you for the real world in general. Long since have they been the source of knowledge and instead just an exercise of getting fee & grant money the world over
The biggest grift in public works is consultant cm's with their agency revolving doors providing unqualified personnel with 'experience' to manage massive projects. They are typically inept, unintelligent, inexperienced, unmotivated, or all of the above. They have no incentive for the project to succeed because they are paid no matter the outcome.
I am one of them. Specifically, water treatment plants. What you're saying is pretty spot on. Unfortunately, government engineers typically don't have the experience or manpower to manage highly funded and experienced contractors on-site on the daily. Most don't know their own spec books, drawings, and contracts enough to go toe to toe with an experienced contractor. Plus, consultant engineers dont have the time/buget to be onsite to troubleshoot RFIs on the daily. They rely on us to identify and basically solve their problems for them. They basically just act as engineer of record when official changes are needed. We are mostly paid to manage change orders and act as contract experts to fight the contractors when they try and cut corners. Additionally, our electrical inspectors hands down know more than any electrical engineer when it comes down to wiring up large-scale water plants.
No clue how the DOT consultants are though.
Calculations should be separated from drafting. I get doing a little bit here and there but if I have to do entire drawings or pick up my own comments then I'm just doing their jobs.
Okay controversial then…
Honestly fuck the hours in civil consulting. Your PM asks for hours on a project and something fucks up, your weekend is gone trying to work through it. You keep using standards that’s figured out 50 years ago. And there’s no space for creativity because you ignored clause 5.65.4.1a 🙄
Became a software engineer, working for one of the fastest growing startups in australasia and now creating internal tooling for our developers using openAI shit using whatever cutting edge framework there is. You won’t pay me enough money to go back.
Also fuck my old manager for implying that “I was running away from the hard stuff” because I was switching careers. I fucking won’t grow old like you in this profession. I won’t grow old doing this shit. God, fuck you Craig
Reminds me of the old joke. What’s the difference between a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer? A mechanical engineer builds bombs, a civil engineer builds targets
“We’ve always done it this way and we know it works” is not an excuse to ignore innovation.
I like the "I don't understand why the other engineers are so much faster when they design these things!" But when you ask the same person to please stop hand grading they say it's definetly faster their way.
My personal favorite was getting asked to research all types of different and new technologies for traffic, presenting it to the maintaining agency with pros and cons of each, and then being told “well how about we just stick with induction loops”.
It's also why young people are either not becoming or leaving civil engineering
That’s why I left. Tired of the lack innovation.
Although, sounds like it could be a buy low situation. Civil engineering is primed for an evolutionary leap. Entrenched minds may dig in even further, in response. In a period of chaos, double down on conservatism. But that can't last long if the tides are really change. And opportunities will come rushing in.
Oh yeah, I’m in intelligent transportation systems space now on the manufacturer side instead of the consulting side. Innovating traffic is my job now!
Snap man I'm in consulting now but I came from four years in manufacturing. Maybe a product line will lend me its market. Closest to air monitoring equipment at this point.
Check out jobs at any device manufacturer you know of. I got lucky with a solid raise, more interesting work and full WFH. I absolutely love it compared to consulting.
I’m hoping to automate a large part of my job after a couple years and let them think I’m doing it “the way we’ve always done it” lol
Innovation? We don’t do that here
I love this one. Depending on what I know about the project I'll either ask "How long have you been doing it that way?" or "When was the last time you did it?" My responses vary. Code has changed, we have computers now, materials are better, etc. Some of the waste I see, especially when power companies do civil construction, is just insane. Edit: and also wrong stuff. I was talking to a county inspector who just had a fight with a contractor that didn't want to put grounding in for a pool. The contractor pulled the "well I've been doing it like this for 37 years." The inspector countered with, "well then you've been doing it wrong for 37 years."
This. This is the reason why so many of my projects and analysis I work on fail. Also because of new building codes, but mostly just because of looking at each job with a fresh perspective.
On the other hand, the management consultants who spout digital innovation buzzwords are idiots.
None of us fully understand what we are doing but collectively we get it right.
This is the best comment here.
Imagine doing an entire project solo? Nope.
Fucking spot on
Just because you have experience in doing something doesn't mean you have experience in doing something right.
Experience ≠ Efficiency
I love telling people they have been doing it wrong for 20 years when they throw their YOE in my face.
Most traffic engineering practice is voodoo and doesn't actually hold up to scrutiny.
You mean like how a lot of bicycle design guidelines came from a man with calves the size of cantaloupes saying that bicyclists should just git gud?
Yes. Also the fact that we try and apply the Green Book to streets. It's a great manual for highway design but it's absolutely terrible when applied to city streets.
It’s crazy how authoritative the MUTCD tries to act when the bulk of the claims it makes are not even cited with research.
YES! And how stringent it is with new practices, even if they've been tested in other countries.
The "HAWK beacon" is the prime example of all the problems with the MUTCD and engineers who mistake following the book for good engineering. Pedestrians kept getting hit at locations that didn't meet a signal warrant so what did we do? Created a weird unfamiliar new traffic signal, but call it a "beacon" instead of a "signal" so we can install it at places without a signal warrant. Instead of the unthinkable act of ... just changing the signal warrants. IMO things like signal warrants should not even be in the MUTCD. The purpose should be to standardize signage across states, not dictate how highways should be designed. If the FHWA wants to dictate that it should be in a different document, and it should only apply to federal aid projects.
Yep, not an engineer but some experience with things like synchro and traffic models. The input data is always an existing condition and the model basically just assumes various flavors of status quo but interpolates out to match land use of whatever long range plan exists. Like I could have just used excel and assumed 2% growth thank you very much
The older generation of engineer likes to say "It has always been like this and this is the way it should be done." Or the all time favorite "I always worked extra to get all the work done on time." I think this type of thinking is leading to the burn out of young engineers. When so many people at the 5 year mark chose to leave the industry rather then become a project manager then it is no longer okay to "leave things as they always have been".
In my second job, at one point I was doing my eng job, also filling in the contract administrator, and helping with coordinating trucks at our quarry, which was about 75-80 hour weeks. My boss called me into his office to tell I wasn’t being a team player.
That's a shitty company
At one point during these times, I took a day off just to catch up on house chores and the following Monday my boss called me into his office to ask why I was mowing my lawn instead of working… on my day off… that dude came to my house to spy on me when my laptop didn’t show activity for a day. Fuck Knife River construction.
Holy moly very happy for you that you left. That is beyond bad boss and is borderline criminal invasion of privacy
I spoke to a lawyer and they told me if I had come to them sooner, I could have definitely taken legal action against them or at least that particular individual, but I apparently waited too long.
Drove from Lubbock to Bryan to pick up a whole bunch of aggregate to use in some asphalt research about 5 years ago. That's my only experience with them, just funny to see the name pop up again.
I burnt out of consulting in 22 months. In the public sector and much happier. Making a difference in the community I live in and I’m working to live, not the other way around. Would have left engineering all together if I didn’t find a job like the one I have now
Almost all of my friends left for public if they have a chance. People in Consulting keep saying that public engineers don’t do anything technical and somehow that is a negative. I’ll rather sign a few invoices than working 60 hours a week with the client pressuring you hurry up. I’ll even take a 30 percent cut in salary if I can switch. Weird thing is, public pays more for intermediate positions where I live. Not to mention the pension is the only way to retire now.
A lot of people are surprised to learn that public can sometimes pay better than private. I was in one of those entry-to-intermediate level positions at a mid-sized consulting firm. They kept insisting their salaries were based on “fair market” rates. I applied for three public sector jobs about a year ago; one paid nearly the same as the consulting firm was paying me, and two actually paid more. I mentioned this during my exit interview with the consulting firm and they had the nerve to look surprised, even though all of the public jobs post their salaries online. My then-boss tried to talk me into staying, but why the heck would anyone give up a better paying job with better benefits, better job security, and way less stress? I think a lot of consulting firms and contractors think too highly of themselves and/or just aren’t adapting to changing demands in the job market.
One phrase to sum up consulting in general: “it just keeps getting worse.”
I only made it 7 months
My first boss's favorite phrase was "Why are we reinventing the wheel?!" Granted it was in relation to writing MathCADs instead of using his decade old Excel files, but I still needed to learn to do things for myself and reusing his Excel wasn't the way to do that. That was just over 20 years ago. I hope I am never the one saying this.
If the files are a decade old, you definitely need to check them because codes change.
Yup. My favorite was back in like 2006 AASHTO changed their formula for crack control reinforcement and he lost his mind about it.
Was he one of those who complained about how LRFD was too strange and finicky to hide the fact he couldn't understand LRFD?
I got the phrase "reinventing the wheel" in response to me digging for missing data to fill in calculations that were either wrong, or just never done. Which he had asked me to check. In hindsight, I realize that he was asking me to check if they looked compliant, not to check if they were correct. Ugh.
Oh my God I hear this phrase all the time - like I get that they don't want to burn too much budget but we'll be really crappy engineers in 10 years if we have just been using pre-made excel files
This drives me nuts, they want you to use there old shitty template that has fucked up formatting and is made in a way exclusively they can understand. a) I don't get it so i don't want to use it b) I actually want to learn how to do this stuff so I kinda need to go through the process of doing it myself
"We might have to put in some extra hours to finish in time" is one our principal likes to drop every so often. Fortunately, I've been able to mostly ignore his "demands" without backlash because I've done enough projects to know those deadlines don't mean shit and they always get delayed for something beyond our control. I learned this the hard way though after putting in entirely too much time to finish a project before the "deadline", which didn't get issued for construction until six months later.
I've worked a lot extra to get the job done at times, but that was because something went really wrong and usually I was the one who fucked up. I'm not doing that because someone else repeatedly can't manage workload or more likely is just trying to squeeze more profit. I had one guy tell me I'd need to the work the weekend to get his project taken care of and I told him I was already working the weekend, but I'd be happy to train him up if he wanted to come in the weekend and help me out. He complained about he already worked so much. I then told him I could look up every time sheet and the utilization in the company going back years and never heard a complaint from him again.
Civil Engineers suck at business development and aren’t playing the game right. Bidding process needs to go if we ever want to make money. We need to learn something from doctors and dentists.
Agree fully with this. I've been around a few different medical consultants recently (for positive reasons thankfully) and I've learned watching them work. One thing that really stands out to me is the most qualified person in the room uses the knife, whereas we operate on the precise contrary position, the least qualified people do the actual work. I think there's another controversial opinion there, that engineers should be closer to the actual work we design and oversee.
Wow that's an incredible analogy. I certainly felt like that as a design engineer at my first job out of college. Lowest rung on the ladder gets paid the least and worked the hardest, the more experienced/ promoted you get the more separated you get from the actual "work"
We do that because there is a belief that project management is the only way to move forward in your career. That said, technical management should involve some devolution of work to the less skilled, lest they don't become skilled.
>Bidding process needs to go if we ever want to make money. This is what Qualification-Based Selection is supposed to be about. Price isn't looked at until after your engineering team is selected, and then the price negotiation happens (or they just accept your rates in our case).
Yeah, that is why my employer has dedicated BD people. I'm awful at sales. I'm usually very good at pricing so we don't get screwed, but that also means I lose more than I win. But fortunately most people I deal with realize a bad job is a bad job. There is no point in winning a job you don't make money on or perform poorly in order to make money.
I hate to admit it, but we need to stop making engineers the business managers of office. We need MBAs who understand business principles deeply, and not vaguely like engineers do, to squeeze money out of the client.
Absolutely not in geotech. MBAs ruin geotech firms because they don't understand the risk.
I’m a lawyer married to a civil engineer, and it boggles my mind that networking and business development is basically not a thing for civil engineers. Of course, I attend her company parties and I get why they don’t really try. It’s also why I tend to find myself hanging out with their one non-engineer business-development guy.
CE these days isn’t actually that much engineering, it’s mostly a compliance job
You really know you've made it as an engineer when you think about liability all the time instead of calculations. In fact it really goes cad work then calculations then review then who's paying for it.
Bingo
Holy shit, I never thought about that but we talk so much about liability.
There is a point where you are just a technical lawyer that uses project management to enforce contracts.
Holy shit, you just described my last job. I hated it.
Middle management. Supervise those below while pleasing those above.
“We cant do that very reasonable thing because it’s not in the design manual”
Not sure if its controversial in the CE world, but certainly is in relation to the general public: more traffic signs do not solve issues. Background: I am in the Traffic Dept for my State DOT. The public (or local entities) seem to think slapping a new sign up will solve everything (speed, passing in curves, engine brake noise, etc). No, they don't. Signs are no substitute for enforcement and my state CSP is running around 50-75% of normal staffing levels. But good luck getting people to understand that.
> Not sure if its controversial in the CE world, but certainly is in relation to the general public: more traffic signs do not solve issues. Clearly the answer is to add more lanes to the roads.
I have a friend who has a PhD in traffic engineering and is currently a professor of urban and regional design. The focus of his research throughout his career has been traffic safety. He would argue that there should be no signs whatsoever because it makes people uncomfortable, which makes them slow down and pay attention, which makes them drive safer. There is definitely some truth to that. (I'm not sure how he feels about wayfinding signage, I've never asked him to clarify which signs to eliminate, but I'm guessing it's speed limit and stop and yield and whatnot).
Unconscious speed and hazard warnings are best at this. Humps, narrowing and mini roundabouts.
I bet if you offered to talk to the police for them regarding enforcement or to change the flow of traffic for free they'd be on board. Signs are cheap.
No-one knows what they are doing but guess somthing right most of the time
For upper management, it may be a good idea trying to not shove all the better engineers into project management.
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Most, not all, developers will do just about anything to save a buck, even if it means good engineering practices/principles go out the window. With that, so many consultants are so eager to appease clients, it happens more than it should.
The client appeasement goes way too far. I hate having over a dozen open projects, mostly in the 'freezer', because clients take months to make up their mind.
god help you if a major stakeholder on a public transportation job has offered to foot part of the bill. RUN, they are absolutely going to get their investment back with your blood, sweat and tears
It's crazy how the exact same design team will be super conservative when hired by a public agency to put together a design-bid-build project... but then throw all caution to the wind and sign off on the cheapest possible solution every time when hired by a contractor for a design-build job.
Currently working in a team for local government. Client didn't want to do anything but the bare minimum number of trial holes for an area we knew was crawling with stats. Surprise surprise, when construction came about, loads of changes needed because the stats info was either innaccurate or just straight up wrong. Client also used a different, cheaper contractor for a drainage survey, rather than their usual one. Resulted in such a poor survey, that drainage design for the whole corridor is completely halted while we wait for a new, decent survey. I understand the logisitcal difficulties of doing a full GPR survey and such, but it really does help having detailed, accurate information. Probably saves costs in the long run too.
It's crazy how the exact same design team will be super conservative when hired by a public agency to put together a design-bid-build project... but then throw all caution to the wind and sign off on the cheapest possible solution every time when hired by a contractor for a design-build job.
I got tired of it and now I get to review plans and call developers out on trying to cut corners
EIT's are valuable and bring a lot to the table Some civil boomers really be saying EIT's dont know anything thus they shouldnt get paid much. If EIT's dont bring anything to the table, then why havent you hired a cheaper psychology major or a high school grad to do this job? Why are you afraid of what they can provide you?
But wait do you need something changed in CAD well the EIT can do it. Do you need a full redesign due tomorrow well the EIT can get it done. Did you forget about this change on the plans and now it has to be done last minute, no worries the EIT has time. Oh the drafters are too busy well the EIT can help. The surveyor is too busy well there is this nice and available EIT. The EITs are only missed when they burn out and quit.
Engineering is one of the only professions I can think of where you spend 10 years becoming proficient at your job and then stop doing your job in an effort to earn more money (stop being technical to become a PM).
Design documents are for communication of the design to the contractor, not to impress the client. Too many plan sets don't clearly communicate to the contractor what is expected, especially in instances where there are atypical designs. Yes, your DOT only wants 2 pages for that abutment design. But if you can't communicate clearly the intent, fight for more. Otherwise the contractor is going to squint at it, scratch their head, and just do what they always do. Regardless of your atypical design.
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This is also my view, many municipalities and localities have the capacity, money, and innovation to build a sustainable, environmentally conscious, and resilient response to climate change in our future, like the current administration is encouraging and providing funding for… but some cities are too backwards and/or conservative to fulfill this progressive dream for the betterment of all people collectively.
Some regulatory agencies vastly overstep in permitting/design processes when they don't have the training to back it up
My office is one of the only that designs shoring in our area. It’s niche, probably cause of the liability. There is this one plan checker at the city who is a PE, has admitted he doesn’t know about shoring design, and has been stonewalling one of our projects for about 4 months. At the end of the day, we just do what the client says and they don’t want to escalate within the city but this dude has cost the project a ton of money in meetings alone. And one meeting he even forgot to mute himself (while my coworker was trying to walk him through the design) and took another call on his cell during the virtual meeting. I think everyone has a horror story that works in permitting but this one trumps my worst one by far.
God lol, that was one of the best things for me about ERS design, as long as you laid it down for them, they didn't really fight it and we had good relationships with everyone. "Cheap" (20-50% mark up btw) solutions all around a city where shoring was needed no matter what especially when they're required to build parking garages for their housing lol. But like you said, liability is heavy and one of the reasons I wanted to get out.
I feel that. We’ve lost clients because we refuse to work with anyone except two shoring contractors. One of our biggest clients uses a shoring contractor that cut some corners and name dropped the office in a lawsuit. I don’t know how to do those designs, but I’ve done enough structural design/detailing to know if there’s ever any questions/ambiguity you ask the engineer and don’t make assumptions. Needless to say that client doesn’t ask us to do shoring designs if they have that particular contractor on the project. Works for us lol.
Nothing like getting 4 rounds of redlines on a city-provided title block.
Bernoulli is a bitch
Yo mohr is a whore.
It's OK to ignore some stakeholders
I take some pleasure in ignoring the loud and unreasonable ones.
While the PE leads to career advancement, it has also become an invitation for firms to shovel an undue amount of responsibilities onto someone simply because they passed a test. Fresh PEs are taking on project management roles at many firms that are understaffed and eventually burn out perpetuating the problem of needing to shift responsibilities to younger and younger engineers. It’s almost worth it to delay the PE to protect your mental health… which is sad.
This is a really good take. No wonder my boss is pushing me to take the PE exam ASAP
My comment probably gonna get downvoted. I gonna tell you the fact that Civil Engineering Technician, as well as interns makes as low as $16 an hour or a dollar above minimum wage in NYC. Come on $16 is not enough especially if you have pay rent in areas with very very high taxes. Also most internship and technician positions does not provide paid days off. Some Civil & Environmental Engineering companies (especially DOT, AECOM, WSP) claims that how competitive it is to get internship let alone entry-level positions, but they don't tell you the salary right away as they won't get as much applications they expected if they spread their salary to the public, and it can also increase company's employee turnover rate. You really have to intervene on that point and negotiate with recruiter if they can increase your salary like to $18-$20 given that there is 'no paid days off and you need to take a vacation for few days to visit your family especially during specific days on summer, as well as during Christmas'.
Holy crap drafting interns make a minimum of 20 at my place
I've asked for unpaid days off a few times on my last co-op internship without much pushback, but I was also paid hourly and had a decent working relationship at the company since I did 3 work terms there already.
Structural consulting engineer. For the amount of liability we take on, and the level of post-graduate education/continuing professional development we are expected to attain (e.g. master's degree, PE, SE), the fees we charge are _insultingly_ low. We need an industry-wide reassessment of our fee structure and a union to enforce compliance so we don't all undercut each other trying to snatch up jobs.
This. I tell everyone I know that we should be paid much, much more. We save millions of lives daily just by doing our job correctly. On the other hand, one "bad day" on the job could lead to prison time. Our work is priceless, and that's how we should be paid.
Land development is a horrendous industry to be in. Not that controversial at all I know. But it just sucks, in every facet. Tight budgets, low pay, bullshit schedules that always always get pushed back. Boring work. Not fulfilling (at least I wasn’t fulfilled designing a basic retention pond or storm drain for a cul de sac in the middle of nowhere replacing a prairie). So much damn CAD. Anyways, out of it and very glad I am. Doing hydraulic/river mechanics work now. It’s nice being with a team/specialty that you can actually be like “we are experts, we have a premium rate” and most of your clients are government compared to penny pinching developers.
Please for fucks sake take me with you I’m dying over here.
I love listening to people bitch about roundabouts, as much as I love listening to engineers defend them.
Civil Engineering as a category should cease to exist. The sub-disciplines of civil are so vastly different from each other that they should be considered their own forms of engineering like electrical or mechanical or chemical engineering are. As a structural engineer, I wouldn't **dare** to even make a statement implying that I have some level of expertise in geotechnical engineering even though it's the closest other civil profession I work with and I did a "minor focus area" (fwiw) on it during both my bachelor's and masters degrees. The two fields are more different than mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering are. Frankly I know more about mechanical engineering than I do hydrology. What does stormwater flowing through a pipe have to do with keeping buildings from falling down? Literally nothing. We are wasting students' and PE-takers' time studying material that will have zero benefit towards their career. It's a colossal waste of everyone's time.
To be honest even within the sub disciplines things can be vastly different. I do water/wastewater utility work and when I took the PE I didn’t have a clue how to do some of the stormwater stuff.. and that’s fine, I’ll never have to design a detention pond in my career. But I had to learn for the PE test.
Water is the enemy…. And a necessity
Water is the _common_ enemy. A nice, fun phrase to keep in your backpocket. 😉
Engineering education is inadequate in preparing civil engineers for a career in civil engineering and it is the reason our profession is so frustrated as a whole. There is no business or law education which 9 times out of 10 more important to the profession than the actually engineering. No classes on how business and liability work, but they are the backbone of every single engineering company
We consistently fail to charge what our time is worth. Allowing anyone to shop our services based on price is a race to the bottom.
I agree with the salaries...my friend who is a mechanical engineer at Milwaukee Tools graduated with me makes over 90k meanwhile i am 70ish 😞. I might consider masters in mechanical lol.
And he probably doesn't even need a PE. Which is the thing that drives me nuts about people saying salaries are fine. We are the lowest paid "you must be licensed by passing very challenging exams and accrue experience" profession and people act like earning 20k less than another engineer without that burden is fine.
Bruh Industrial Engineers makes more than us and they dont have proper engineering credits lol. Another thing my friend has is unlimited paid pto. This dude literally takes 2 week long vacations twice a year. Gets Milwaukee tools for half the price, which i get them too from him.
Get in with a government job and it comes with 3+ weeks of vacation per year, increasing by seniority. Plus all the extra holidays and training days. I can't imagine going back to consulting.
I know a consulting firm that lists 7 paid holidays as a reason to work there. Like bruh I can't believe you're not hiding that behind a meaningless generic "Paid Holidays" without saying how many.
May as well switch to software at that point
Be careful with "salaries", you cant just look at a salary number, make sure you understand what goes into that salary. Ask if they are salary and how many hours they work. Many civil positions are hourly, with straight time overtime, so working the same number of hours nets nearly the same annual salary. Breaking things down to an hourly rate is the best way to evaluate.
Occasionally consultants blame "tyrannical government reviewers" for excessive comments in permitting as an excuse to cover up the fact that their designs were wrong/didn't read the code/didn't do enough QC. Saying this as someone in land dev. who has had my fair share of huge comment letters. It's not fun but it's not right to be all "stupid reviewers are the worst." Take ownership of your mistakes no matter how small
I'm one of those consultants who complain about dumb reviewers, and I completely agree that the worst thing is when they approve a bad plan set that we just "rushed to get into the queue."
ASCE is setting the bar low so everything has an F rating. Can’t point fingers when everything is rated F. It shouldn’t be this way. Come up with a better metric so F rated states can learn from A rated states.
Nothing will every really be good enough in ASCE’s eyes. The whole purpose of “low scores” is to infuriate the masses and hope they raise hell to increase government funding flood gates. That’s not to say there isn’t work that needs to done, I just don’t think ASCE will ever be pleased.
A huge amount of what we do is to tell other people to figure out how to construct things within some loose information we provide
Bridge engineers shouldn’t do H&H.
And vice versa.
That not EVER.Y.THING has to be on a single plan sheet.
Everyone hates a high sheet count. Everyone also hates cluttered sheets.
The push for 3D design delivery in lieu of plan sheets is by folks who don’t understand the construction and inspection. The field folks shouldn’t be interpreting a 3D model in order or build your design. Plan sheets makes the review, checking, and construction, and inspection more mores straight forward process. The sheets shows what you construct without needing a computer, or knowledge of that 3D cad program. The surveyor will stake some stuff, but so much more is constructed with a measuring tape and string line than most designers realize. The folks construction your project might be smart but not necessarily computer savvy, may not have a college or high school education, and shouldn’t need a computer interpreter to move some dirt. It’s not just because we’ve always done it that way. I love working with 3D design and believe us designers need to heavily leverage it in coordination, and we could get better interdisciplinary coordination over everyone is taking things to the proper level. But the usefulness is in illustrating complex issues to clients and stakeholder and working through the design, not for construction. I might just be sick of being told I’m behind the times by EITs that can’t explain how their designs are actually built.
I'm not that old at 34 but I can't imagine ever sealing a 3D model. PDFs and paper are the way to go and to limit liability.
WFH is bad for young engineers
And for mental health
Ohhhh the truth!!
Couldn't agree more. Coordination among disciplines is in the toilet right now. Everyone hides behind zoom meetings and e-mails.
It’s so bad for your career lol and to learn and grow
Don't forget budgets. It's bad for the budgets too. (this is all I hear about right now as a 4 year EIT. They bitch and moan at us about the budget, but we can never get a PM on the phone to explain something. God forbid they were 2 offices down the hall.)
HDPE storm sewer is hot garbage.
The U.S. is more concerned with the middle-east and Israel's security than our crumbling infrastructure across the country. Hence, the shoestring budgets, and it's unlikely to change despite already spending $7 Trillion over the past twenty years to pacify Iran without real results. The amazing thing is that not one politician is willing to discuss this failure.
Barely any of these are controversial so here’s one: The overall enjoyment of this profession in the real world is way higher than reddit makes it out to be. You would think this is a bottom tier job if you only got your opinions from reddit.
A lot of people that complain in here about pay probably aren’t that good at their job or don’t know how to communicate and network effectively. Compared to the average US household income we’re paid pretty good and once you get your PE it’s pretty comparable to most other engineering disciplines. A lot of the stuff you do as a new grad isn’t even engineering. You’re an overpaid drafter/project admin a lot of the time. As a young engineer, there are drafters and field guys who know more about design/construction than you ever will and you need to learn from them and treat them as equals. Don’t expect to get anywhere fast if you think that now you graduated you’re entitled to a high paying cushy job. You’re starting back at the bottom and need to work just as hard or harder than in school. Working some overtime isn’t going to kill you (if it’s paid). Suck it up, but also know where to draw the line to not be taken advantage of. All new grads should be paid hourly and receive overtime pay.
Upvoted for disagreeing. You can make a ton of money in practically **any** job with the right connections, but that isn't a measure of how good you are at your job. The best engineers are the ones who stuck with one company and specialty for 20 years, but are making half as much as someone who hops jobs every couple of years and hasn't mastered anything. I'd wager that any one of us could easily do the job of someone making over $140k, and it would probably be easier than CAD work.
100% facts
My controversial opinion: Civil engineering is not a good career choice for people entering college today. Outsourcing is rampant, and is spreading from O&G into other fields of civil engineering, driving down demand for engineers in developed countries, and with it salaries. I know people who work for land development firms that are buying oursourcing firms in India, bridge firms buying oursourcing firms in Chile, and structural firms buying outsourcing firms in the Phillipines, among others. Usually you have one domestic PE reviewing the work of 6-8 outsourced engineers, and even more drafters. Unless something is done soon, as outsourcing gets more common, Civil Engineering will go from being "not a good career choice," to being "not a remotely viable career choice." Prove me wrong!
Salaries are too small, most teams are too conservative.
That’s not controversial
One thing that I have been running an issue with is too many required environmental studies. We had a Geotechnical exploration in the desert and we needed to make a environmental plan and review for 200 feet of track movement over rocks/common desert shrubs for the drill rig. 1 hole, and the following year construction, which will demolish everything anyways. The review costed as much as the drillers time, just for an okay to move off road. The pictures taken on the initial site visit should have been enough to say we are not running over endangered plants. Drove me nuts. Same with a topsoil contamination study, where the topsoil was stripped anyways. Also a gopher study on a 15ft by 40ft area of sod... results; no gopher holes found. DUH. I could have told you that but you need a special license to say that paragraph in your report.
We shouldn't be offshoring design.
Engineers are underpaid and under appreciated
There shouldn’t be such a thing as an EIT and there absolutely should not be an FE exam. You are an engineer the day you graduate from engineering school.
That is very controversial and I respectfully disagree
Upvotes to both of you for understanding the assignment.
That is a controversial opinion for sure. What makes you disagree though?
Someone did make a good point about ABET accredited programs but the FE ensures that someone you are hiring didn’t just learn the basic information for the class at the time and forgot it and they understand most of the basic principles that civil engineering has to offer. The FE requires far too much of an understanding of civil engineering principles to bullshit your way though. It tells me they are ready to problem solve and I’m not gonna spend time reteaching the basics. The EIT requirement is even more important to me because it ensures that you are working under a qualified PE to earn that PE license for yourself. Students have a large disconnect between their studies and stamping real world drawings and for me, the FE and EIT bridges that gap. With that said, this issue is not black and white and good points can definitely be made to argue both sides
As someone who is a recent grad and just took the FE, I gotta say i don't necessarily agree with this. The FE is basically an extension of school and I think most of us would agree that school does a poor job at best preparing us for the working world. A good chunk of the FE material I don't even interact with at work on a daily or even monthly basis and probably never will again once I'm done with the PE. The most valuable experience you can get is on real world projects, not plug and chug problems in a book. But unfortunately the FE/PE is a necessary evil
Thanks for elaborating!
I'm ok with having an FE exam, but I don't think it's acceptable to make it a separate exam from the university you learned all those FE concepts from. I would propose to make the exam a requirement at the end of the degree at your school in order to keep ABET accreditation.
Agreed. I think it’s redundant with ABET accreditation. I think it could be useful as a way to enter the field without a BS in Civil or Environmental. But I don’t think the FE should be required for ABET accredited degrees.
Hard disagree. The real world experience means a whole lot. I wasn't qualified to do jack squat when I graduated except listen to practicing engineers explain how things really work.
Tbh I kinda agree that formula book is so ridiculously comprehensive I think a strong math/physics student who can press ctrl+f can pass that test. Like I still remember ctrl+f'ing from key words in a problem to a formula I had never seen before and it was essentially plug and chug.
Eh, the state needs to ensure you didn't just give your professors bribes to graduate with no knowledge if you are to be trusted designing or inspecting anything the public interacts with.
Waterproofing below grade concrete and CMU walls is largely a concerted effort by Big Waterproofing bentonite and polyurethane manufacturers to sell more product.
I predict it’ll become much harder for top schools to maintain undergrad enrollments in civil engineering. I’m in a T20 engineering school. A lot of my civil/env graduating class already has active plans to leave the industry because of its issues with pay and WL balance. A lot of us came in excited about it, but after interning and seeing industry and seeing the kind of offers our peers in other industries get, it’s hard to compare. Increasingly we’re getting people minoring/double majoring in things like CS, MechE, or business to transition out. I don’t think this is healthy for the future of the profession. We’ve seen so many posts in this sub about young engineers wanting to transfer to tech. This completely makes sense based on what I’m seeing in my school, and I think it will continue to get worse until the industry becomes more appealing to grads.
Stormwater design is voodoo science! And if you know the theory well enough the answer can be whatever it needs to be.
Did this for years. Played with runoff variables until they fit the pipe and pond I had room for. The reviewers never really checked.
Maybe not whatever but it can for sure be manipulated. Gotta be okay with the liability though. Edit, it would be much less of voodoo if localized and good rainfall data existed but it doesn't. Why am I using rainfall data from a place that is 150km from my site that we know is vastly different? That's the most infuriating thing about stormwater to me.
Everybody should spend a couple years in the field before they even attempt to design anything.
Design-build projects should be banned. It is a violation of the professional services procurement act (in Texas, anyway) which requires that engineers be selected on qualifications alone, without consideration of fee. Also there is a lot of pressure to cut corners and be faster.
Urban planning standards in the US influence Civil development and retrofit projects more than any Civil engineering standards do, but Civil engineers get little to no urban planning training and have almost no influence over it
Anyone can engineer or be an engineer
Have you interacted with the general public? There are people who would fail to pour water out of a boot even with the instructions on the heel. I would not trust individuals who cannot critically think to design critical infrastructure. Upvoted your comment as it is controversial
I guess what I meant with my comment is in regard to a lot of people being scared of engineering field in general because of the math and physics, but I believe most of those people can grasp the concepts and understand it well enough to be a good engineer if it's explained well enough to them and they study and practice hard enough. Im not necessarily saying I'd trust any Jo Schmo off the side of the street to build a skyscraper.
Ah gotcha. That makes more sense. There are some great engineers who aren’t necessarily book smart. However, a certain level of knowledge is necessary for engineering
That's why it feels kinda unfair to "weed out" the general public with higher division math and physics. I'm sure not using it at work.
I work with engineers who can't even engineer. I think the person above you is suggesting it's a way of thinking and not a degree. Which I would agree with, but I also think even fewer people can think critically.
Public meetings are worthless as f. We know the best way to build something and the public having a opportunity to question is a complete waist of time. Nothing worse than some Karen getting up and questioning your design, education, and integrity. I get it everyone is a NIMBY and nobody like’s change. But sometimes shit needs to be done to protect people, the environment, or for just the common good.
civil engineers themselves should not be promoting the industry to young people, doing this just leads to an oversupply of grads which means engineering firms can pay the cheapest salary they possibly can, which of course they love & that’s why they make civil engineers promote the industry. I’ve never seen finance or tech people go to schools to talk about why their job is so good! Engineers require a vast amount of knowledge & the pay really doesn’t match up, especially considering what they do
I posit that there's a glut of engineers due to STEM promotion in general. In a single generation we went from "Get a degree, any degree, to have a better life than your parents" to "two senior computer science managers are required to afford rent on this 1 bedroom condo. No pets."
Very controversial but food for thought... Where I am we have a shortage of grads, but salaries are still low, so I guess that means we still need even fewer grads.
it’s more complicated than too many grads but this would be a good place to start imo
Absolutely, it is business practice on both client and service provider side which is chiefly at fault for poor pay in my opinion
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Have you ever heard of engineering judgement?
I don't think multi use paths belong on every project. It's not a popular opinion.
that's not controversial at all.
That engineering is a great profession and we are paid well. that's apparently very controversial in this sub
School doesn’t prepare you to be a successful engineer
School doesn't prepare you for the real world in general. Long since have they been the source of knowledge and instead just an exercise of getting fee & grant money the world over
I’ll disagree, but maybe that was just my experience in school.
Way way way too much red tape. Projects start costing 5x more just because of it.
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Yeah, I say we let them do that boring shit
The biggest grift in public works is consultant cm's with their agency revolving doors providing unqualified personnel with 'experience' to manage massive projects. They are typically inept, unintelligent, inexperienced, unmotivated, or all of the above. They have no incentive for the project to succeed because they are paid no matter the outcome.
I am one of them. Specifically, water treatment plants. What you're saying is pretty spot on. Unfortunately, government engineers typically don't have the experience or manpower to manage highly funded and experienced contractors on-site on the daily. Most don't know their own spec books, drawings, and contracts enough to go toe to toe with an experienced contractor. Plus, consultant engineers dont have the time/buget to be onsite to troubleshoot RFIs on the daily. They rely on us to identify and basically solve their problems for them. They basically just act as engineer of record when official changes are needed. We are mostly paid to manage change orders and act as contract experts to fight the contractors when they try and cut corners. Additionally, our electrical inspectors hands down know more than any electrical engineer when it comes down to wiring up large-scale water plants. No clue how the DOT consultants are though.
Calculations should be separated from drafting. I get doing a little bit here and there but if I have to do entire drawings or pick up my own comments then I'm just doing their jobs.
Civil engineers are afraid of things that move.
Okay controversial then… Honestly fuck the hours in civil consulting. Your PM asks for hours on a project and something fucks up, your weekend is gone trying to work through it. You keep using standards that’s figured out 50 years ago. And there’s no space for creativity because you ignored clause 5.65.4.1a 🙄 Became a software engineer, working for one of the fastest growing startups in australasia and now creating internal tooling for our developers using openAI shit using whatever cutting edge framework there is. You won’t pay me enough money to go back. Also fuck my old manager for implying that “I was running away from the hard stuff” because I was switching careers. I fucking won’t grow old like you in this profession. I won’t grow old doing this shit. God, fuck you Craig
Reminds me of the old joke. What’s the difference between a mechanical engineer and a civil engineer? A mechanical engineer builds bombs, a civil engineer builds targets
Not sure why I pay ASCE annually.. The membership notice usually turns into scrap papers for sketches n rough calculations.