What people think of Civil, strucuture engineers and architects ?

[a_man]

I am a 2nd year civil engineer student in Canada, and I was planning to earn master degrees of architecture.

I had an internship in Asia (to be specific, Korea), and people here had a horrible view of Civil, structure engineering and architure for following reasons

Civil - dangerous job that works at on-site, lack of innovation, too many people, but not many expert. Designing is fun but not so great pay.

Structure- boring, limitation of promotion (highest position was team manager), the main job is to review blueprints and doing calculation.

Architects -Low employment rate. (I also heard that they receives lower payment than civil engineers)

People always ask me if these ppl are well respected in a North America society because general view of the jobs are not so respecful since they work with people from construction guys (like crane operators).

How do these jobs viewed in North America society ? ( Not as much respect as electrical or computer engineers ?)

 

[radou]

It all depends where you work and what the conditions are. I never worked on-site (which has its bad sides, too), so I couldn't call my job "dangerous" at all. Here in our country, the starting payments are nothing special (let's say they're just a bit above the average salary here), and they usually rise with time, but again, it all depends on where you work.

Lack of innovation...Hmm. Depends, again. If you're very busy and have a lot of work to do, you definitely don't have much time to be "innovative". But in general, every engineering branch requires a creative way of thiking and solving problems. So you can't say that it's not innovative.

In general, I couldn't say (at least not for my country) that these are not respected jobs. Actually, people use to say "wow" when you say you're a civil engineer here. It's a respected faculty and profession.

 

[a_man]

you did not tell me where you are from ?

 

[radou]

Croatia.

 

[kote]

Architects... I'm not terribly familiar with architecture, but there is a much wider range. Someone has to design skyscrapers, colleges, museums, etc.

As for flavors of engineering, check http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos027.htm and http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/fall09a.pdf.

 

[Jery]

A lot of people seem to link Architecture and Engineering. However, these are two very different fields to study. Remember that Architecture is about art. I know many students who thought they wanted to study architecture but after a year or two switched to engineering because architecture was not at all what they thought. Just something to check out or keep in mind before you make any long term plans.

 

[lisab]

Civil and structural engineers are highly regarded in North America. Architects are too, but not as much.

I may be biased though; my dad is a CE and I work with a lot of structural engineers.

 

[a_man]

Civil and structural engineers are highly regarded in North America. Architects are too, but not as much.

I may be biased though; my dad is a CE and I work with a lot of structural engineers.

oh yeah, which company does ur dad work at, and what is his position (what does he do at work?)

 

[lisab]

oh yeah, which company does ur dad work at, and what is his position (what does he do at work?)

He's retired now, but he used to work for Lockheed as a young man, and then the Army Corps of Engineers, then for the State of Alaska. Not sure of his position but when he retired, he was in charge of building medical clinics in rural Alaskan Native villages.

 

[Pyrrhus]

Hello there fellow Civil Engineers.

I graduated with a Diplom-Ingenieur in Civil Engineering in November 2007. I worked from October to December 2007 as an Assistant Engineer (Intern) to a 3 resident engineers of 3 building construction projects. It was an interesting experience, my work required me to be at the construction site and inspect the work of different contractors. Also, there was some creativity required as sometimes details of the building do not follow precisely the blueprints. Later, in Jan 2008, I worked in an Asphalt Plant as a Quality Control Engineer. I performed tests (e.g. CBR, Proctor, Marshall Test) and took samples from hot mix asphalt material and its constituents materials before mixing. My work ensured high quality in pavement used in highways, arterials, and other road classes.

Most of my work so far has been in field, but at the moment I am currently doing postgraduate studies, hopefully I'll be able to move to more sophisticated mathematical work. In general, I believe you should never limit yourself by the title of your degree...

Good luck!