Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution's Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.
What Is Civil Engineering All About?
Civil engineering deals with a variety of construction and maintenance tasks, like building and maintaining roads, bridges, tunnels, buildings, airports, dams, water works, sewage systems and ports. A civil engineer not only requires a high standard of engineering knowledge, but also supervisory and administrative skills. The work involves planning, constructing and maintaining.
The planning and designing part demands site investigation, resource feasibility study and on-the-spot decision making. An engineer has to be quick to make a decision because emergencies do come up and need to be dealt with then and there. Other important duties of an engineer involve taking care of work within the local government guidelines and getting permission for plans, creating a cost estimate and construction schedules and post-completion maintenance of the project.
There are many specialized branches of civil engineering such as dealing with structures, water resources, environment, construction, transportation and geo-technical engineering. For most projects, civil engineers work in teams or sometimes even in coordination with other engineers.
Civil engineering is ideal for those who love to create and the job is monetarily rewarding and involves a lot of responsibility. An engineer is directly responsible for public safety and welfare. Safety should be the first priority of any engineer. If they are involved in constructing residences, they have to follow the safety precautions involved too. In the case of a highway, they are expected to follow traffic safety rules.
Engineers have to look out for potential hazards, including environmental impacts and estimated life expectancy of the project. Natural disasters make it important for engineers to be extra cautious about environmental pressures.
Building Your Career In Civil Engineering:
To begin a career in civil engineering, you need to complete a formal school education, including core courses in English, Algebra, Geometry, Advanced Math, Physics and a foundation in History and Social Studies. In college, a student needs to earn a Bachelor's degree. Pursuing a Master's degree is necessary. According to a recent survey, more than 35% students who have acquired a Bachelor's degree go on to enroll for a Master's, even as they continue to work. Many students prefer to work and earn at the same time because that can earn them a tuition reimbursement.
Acquiring a Master's degree or a PhD helps a student to specialize in the field. The road to complete a civil engineering course is endless and that is why many professionals choose to keep on learning the latest trends in the construction business via special programs developed by universities and professional societies like the American Society of Civil Engineers. The annual earning of a civil engineer is anywhere between $43,000 to $90,000, depending on specialization and experience.
- Related Videos
- Related Articles
- Ask / Related Q&A
- A Career In Civil Engineering
- Distance Learning Civil Engineering - Learn to Design a Better World, the Online Way
- Civil Engineers – Shaping The World For A Better Tomorrow
- Distance Engineering Learning - Save More Human Lives Than Doctors
- Five Affordable High Paying Online Engineering Degree Programs
- The Best Way To Find Engineering jobs
- A Brief History of Engineering
- Engineering Degree Schools
How to get a Salary Raise
By: Geetika Jain | 06/07/2009Do you feel you are underpaid? Do you think your company is benefiting from you much more than what it is paying in return? Do you think that your efforts at the job are unrewarded? Do you think you truly deserve a salary raise? If the answer to all these questions is ‘Yes’, all you need to do is ask.
Career Scope in Pharmacy
By: Geetika Jain | 06/07/2009There is a demand for trained and qualified pharmacists in all these fields and more such fields. A pharmacist can find a job with the pharmaceutical industry, government departments, universities, academic institutes, forensic field etc.
Australia's Job Market and Its Future
By: Alex Murray | 04/07/2009With Australia's recent economic problems, people have started looking for the easiest way to get a new job. It seems that the traditional way of using a job recruitment agency is outdated and inefficient according to actual job hunters who have compared it to using other internet services.
Moving Out of Poverty Into Opportunity
By: John Vespasian | 04/07/2009Various approaches have been tried against poverty, with different levels of success. Living in an environment of deprivation can undermine a man's spirit and this is why he needs to figure out a feasible plan to improve his situation. What we know is that unrealistic expectations do not work.
Metallurgical engineering careers in thermal spray
By: Raj Krishnaswamy | 04/07/2009Get an exciting job in the field of thermal spray coatings if you are considering the field of metallurgy. Read on below.
Find the Right Line of Career: A Career-Oriented Individual’s Guide to a Great and Rewarding Profession
By: David Patullo | 04/07/2009Living in a circa 20th century and finding your way to the top of the corporate ladder simply means you have to do it aggressively or you will end up on the losing end. Which path will you choose?
The World of Accounting as a Lucrative and Challenging Field
By: Elijah James | 04/07/2009If mathematical rational expressions, equations, variables, and arithmetic sequences and series are second nature to you, an accounting course or career may be the perfect field you can get into. Have you ever found yourself enjoying the company of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division?
How Do You Break Into A Journalism Career?
By: Sutiyo Na | 03/07/2009For people who are looking forward to a journalism career, there are so many things that they can do to move an inch higher to their dream. For young people who were already to determine in themselves that a journalism career is really the profession that they would want to pursue, they can start gaining all they need to be qualified for the job.
Lean: Six Steps With Review Points
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | ManagementLean Six Sigma is a philosophy that aims at the improvement in value provision to the customer, improvement in process flows and elimination of waste. Lean deals with waste by shortening the time gap between the order and the shipment. The organization is based on six steps for continuous improvement. These steps are value, value stream, flow, pull, perfection and replication.
How to Research Your Career before Deciding on a Suitable One
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | CareersYou may need to conduct some research for selecting a career at different times during your life and for different reasons. It may be required when you need to pursue a career for the first time or when you are considering a career change.
Hoshin Planning: Making the Strategic Plan Work
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | ManagementIn the current business scenario, organizations strive towards exceeding the customer's expectations and achieving a competitive edge over rivals. This comes as an outcome of the long term planning, an achievable vision towards the goal and continuous improvement in the processes.
Career Moves For Older People
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | CareersPeople make career moves for various reasons and under various circumstances in their lives. When older people change their jobs of their own free-will, it is a pleasant experience for them; but when the circumstances of life force them to look for a new job, it may be a very painful experience.
How To Raise The Stakes To Get That Raise
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | CareersMany people don't know how to ask for a raise. The fact that you need more money to support your lifestyle is not reason enough.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Making a Lateral Career Move
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | CareersConsciously or unconsciously, many of us wonder whether we have already found our dream job or have just settled for something in the absence of anything better. It is pretty much like a teen with the first flash of youthfulness looking for his or her soul mate.
How To Handle The First Month Of Your New Job
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | CareersWhile we all eagerly look forward to a fresh start in a new job, most of us are unwilling to find out how to conduct ourselves appropriately in a new workplace. It is not just about putting on a broad smile all the time or keeping our bosses in a good humor.
Cutting-Edge Methods Help Target Call Center Waste
By: Tony Jacowski | 30/09/2008 | ManagementThere are different activities undertaken in call centers; planning, call routing, after-call operations, research operations on unresolved calls, reporting and staff scheduling. The most important function is the handling of calls, inbound as well as outbound. This function is repeated a number of times throughout the day and needs lots of improvement.