Little backstory, My current plan is to go into Air Force CE which is mostly Project Management and will involve little-to-no use of my degree which I’m getting right now out of a commissioning source. My plan is to be proactive in getting my masters, FE, PE, etc. while I’m in the Air Force and have them pay as much of it off as I can so I can have all my licensure before I get out.

I really have enjoyed all of my structural engineering classes thus far and I’ve done a little research on being a structural engineer after I’m done with my time in the AF. I’ve heard varying opinions from many different people. Hoping some of you guys could answer these questions I have. I really have no idea exactly what I want to do in CE as I have no experience, but no other focus within CE has interested me like structures/material has. Here are a few of my questions:

1. Is Structural Engineering as stressful as many say it is, and if so, in what ways does it stress you?

2. Do you really get to do a lot of hand calculations and what they teach you in school, or is that mostly for redundancy/understanding how/why things are/aren’t working?

3. Do you feel like you are under-compensated for the amount of risk you take on?

4. Does the amount of risk you take on scare you and if so, how do you cope with it?

5. What do you love most about the job?

6. What do you hate most about the job?

These are a few of the questions I keep thinking about and it would really be a huge help if I could chat with some of you on here to better understand what y’all do. Would love to fuel some more questions through discussion as well. Thank y’all very much!

(Btw, most of my instructors are in the military so they don’t have a lot of experience outside of Air Force CE, besides having PhD, PE, Masters, etc.)

I just made the switch to private from public recently. My new boss appears to be working Saturday and Sunday all the time. He always sends out email on randomly on the weekend about a project or professional events.

I'm putting in 50 hours a week now and I don't think I work hard enough as him or many guys in the office. I've seen people staying late 6 or 7pm all the time.

How many hours yall work in a week especially though in consulting?

I like the challenging work in private but should I switch back to public? I do miss the stress-less work life balance.

Hello I’m currently a sophomore civil engineer and I was wondering if the 12 hour 3 days a week shifts are rare in the civil engineering industry. Do any of you have this type of shifts and would you recommend it? It just sounds nice to have 4 days off a week. Thank you!

Hello everyone! I'm a recent civil engineering graduate who has been working at a mid-size transportation engineering consulting firm for the last year and a half. During this time, I've had ups and downs with how I feel about my job, which I believe is normal. Sometimes I'm really interested in the projects we work on, other times I'd rather be doing anything else. I do a lot of drafting, which I don't mind when it's in moderate amounts or if it's related to drafting details. But oftentimes I find myself getting very frustrated when I'm tasked with drafting work for long sections of highway. The work gets very monotonous and unengaging for me at that point, and I often end up angry by the time I'm done. Then revisions come around and oftentimes I am fixing errors made by other people or errors that could have been avoided had they sat down and explained their drafting guidelines to me before I started working. I don't mind revising our work, but I think I've come to dislike drafting so much that I don't want to see those plan sheets for a while after I've drafted them lol. The people at the company are great, I have a good manager, and the work life balance is also pretty good. But I'm wondering if I am staying put moreso out of fear and loyalty and less so because I actually enjoy my work.

When I chose transportation engineering to be my career path, I came in with the motivation to eliminate traffic as much as possible and make the driving experience safer and easier for all motorists no matter where they're driving. During college, I was very interested in Intelligent Transportation Systems and how they could be utilized in tandem with emerging technologies to make the driving experience faster, safer, and less stressful. While I am happy with my job overall, I think I'm beginning to understand that that kind of work isn't what they have me heading towards, and this gives me second thoughts about staying there.

So I say all of this to say, to those who have been in a similar situation and have had similar feelings, what did you do? Should I just tough it out until I get more experience? Or should I jump ship while it's early and search for something more aligned with my interests? Am I being too unrealistic regarding what I'd like to do for my career? Please let me know if you'd like. Thanks!

Hello po, im a ce student and will be taking the board this april 2025, asking for advice po, in terms of the subjects , i can say im pretty weak when it comes to PSAD. Asking for advice and any recommendation po 🥹 on how to improve and what should i focus on

I am three months into school for engineering and I absolutely hate my life right now. I hate how i have to get up at 6:30am and get home late. I hate how i have no social life anymore because school is number 1 priority. I really want to do civil engineering. I really do, at the same time i feel an urge to just drop out everyday.

I am currently taking 7 courses and i just feel burnt out my life is basically everyday from morning to night all school. I cant even take a day off from it because i know if i do i will just have to do double the amount of work the next day.

Just a small rant lol but plz give me ideas on how i can manage.

Hi all. First time poster. I’m currently a Quality Engineer working for a Tier 1 civil construction company. I’ve been privileged enough to work in 3 big project the last two years, mainly hired as a PE but was assigned as a QE for all these projects and really loved it.

The problem is, I do not see any career progression for my career path in the company due to not having a structured Quality career path in the arm of the business I am in. I am trying to move forward with possibly getting an SQE role and want to do a ISO 9001 auditing course to support this. I’ve improved the quality systems and processes in the business, improved my digital engineering knowledge and in the process also became an unofficial quality advisor and quality manager for projects. I’ve trained both my team and client to use new technologies and in the process, have upskilled them. However in my current team, I am only seen as the QA paperwork person. The systems I have assisted in maturing and developing are not embraced to the fullest extent by the field engineers, and I feel like I’m not valued for my time and efforts.

I feel very lost. I want to develop the company’s quality systems more and work in that space, or even step up and be a SQE/PM for the next projects, but my last conversation with my bosses, it doesn’t feel like I am heading towards that direction at all.

I really do like Quality but also Digital Engineering in a construction space. Not really sure what I should be doing.

I have been working as an engineer for almost 8 years - worked in construction/mining for 2, and client/government for 6.

Would be awesome if I can get advice from fellow Quality people. Thanks!

Initially posted this in the PE Exam sub, but figured I would post here as well. Any tips or tricks greatly appreciated!

Hi all. I take the civil PE (transportation) in about 3 weeks. I just completed my full first run though of a practice exam and feel like im getting a good grasp of using the reference manuals for equations and tables. However, one thing I struggle with is finding other obscure information in the reference manuals.

For example, one problem I did related to lane taper lengths. I used the equations from MUTCD and got 90 ft. The solution used the same equation I did and got 90 ft, but then said that the MUTCD states that taper lengths should be at least 100 ft in urban areas. I was able to find the section of the manual that discussed this but it was in a completely different section!

That being said, how am I supposed to know when one of these obscure rules applies? Is there a strategy for learning these or is it something you just get to know through repetition?

Side note: if anyone has access to any other practice exams and would be willing to share, Id greatly appreciate it!

Hi Reddit,

I recently graduated from a 3 year Civil Engineering Technology program here in canada. During school I had 2 4month internships, one as a CAD design assistant for a water/wastewater large company. And my second being an assistant onsite road construction inspector for the city. (both were pretty fun however I liked being inside more)

Now since graduation (april2024) I joined a small/medium size company working as a CAD assistant (fully remote job) Unfortunately, I have had a terrible experience working here. I barely received any training and people are very rude and unhelpful. I struggle to fill in my timesheet and overall just hate it here. It's an sink or swim kind of job.

Since the industry is active transportation (bike lanes), it's very political therefore very tight budgets resulting in my managers being very stingy when charging hours on timesheets.

I'm looking to switch jobs next year once I reach the 1year mark at this job (to look reliable/good on resume).

I don't want to go back to the transportation industry as it's too political.

I'm not against going back to the water/wastewater conveyance industry but ideally I'm looking for something a little bit more interesting.

I'd really appreciate if anyone could provide some suggestions on what I should do. I have already started working on my resume/cv.

Thanks so so much!

Where can I get files of earthquake time histories? I need to simulate an earthquake in a model. Is there a website that keeps time histories of earthquakes around the world? Thanks!

In the US, most places want your FE and PE. Is it the same in Australia? Can you still get a job if you don’t have either of those?

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. Question is the title: how often does your company fire employees?

Context: The company I work at seems quick to fire. In my time there (less than 2 years), the number of fired employees has been in the double digits. The total number of employees was only in the double digits to begin with. It appears there are 1 or 2 more on the chopping block now. A couple may have been for financial reasons, but most were performance related.

I’m not about to be fired, but looking for context of how common it is for other companies.

Hello all, it’s coming up to one year since I have started my career and I am very tempted to buy a truck now. I know it’s very typical for new grads to buy expensive vehicles they cannot afford so i like some opinions on when is the right time. Even though my company provides a truck for work it still doesn’t cure that itch for the diesel truck I want. Certainly doesn’t help with my looking at r/f250 every day either.

When I opened the scenario manager in Synchro 11, I could only see the option to type the date and time point for 7:30 am, but I could not put the time range (from 7:30 am to 8:30 am) there in scenario manager setting, how can I put the specific time range there ?

As the title says, I (25m) just wanted to rant about this small company where I am, specially about the general manager (who is an old structural engineer, between 70 to 80yo, he graduated back in 1970 as far as I know). I lost my old job back in April and have searching since, so I ended up in this small company to remodelate and reinforce a +80yo house made only of masonry in a luxury place from town, and started mid September.

They haven't paid me yet (it's already a week) and my boss only replied me with "We are waiting for the client to send the money of the last valuation you sent". That is bs, I never knew anyone that gets paid that way, specially since all the workers gets paid punctually (which should be the norm for everyone). Not only that, office is asking me and my assistant to do things that should be their job.

But wait, there is more. My boss, the old engineer, comes to the working site and in his head he starts to imagine structures, with the exact amount of rebar and more that we need to do the reinforcement of the house, and while it fits into own country's normative, still scares me that he does this without proper analysis (definitely overengineer as heck). Plus when I ask for simple additives for the concrete, he sends his hand made custom additives with the "product technical sheet" that it's just laughable (850gr of additive per cement bag and mix for 10 freaking minutes just to obtain a 4" slump).

In my country there is going to be a special meeting (Biden and the China president are gonna be here next week) and our government decided to declare 3 days off for everyone with a mandatory letter, I informed my boss and he got mad against me, telling me to just ignore it and continue to work anyway and if anyone asks, just don't open the door to them, even if it's the police since we are very close to a diplomatic hotel and a embassy. I ain't planing to risk to all those problems unless he signs a letter specifically ordering me to ignore the Supreme Decrete our country sent.

I'm just done with it and if he doesn't pay me today I'm quiting, although I would feel bad for the client, the neighbors and the workers (here in my country, you get paid by day, if the working site stops, they won't get paid nothing until it reopens). No one works free, and I definitely don't want to put more of my own signs in the results of this concrete (and of course, the company doesn't have any previous concrete design or even a soil mechanics study). I could go on and on about more things but I hoped you guys can understand me. I'm hoping quiting after a very few time just doesn't get me in more problems later while searching for another job.

I am looking for any type of resource on LS Dyna based FEA tutorials on structural engineering. I have seen the youtube tutorials from Ameen Topa and some other resources but they are not quite relevant to structural analysis.

Actually I am working on concrete steel composite wall and want to perform dynamic non linear wind analysis on the composite wall.

Hi everyone! I’m a high school senior considering Civil Engineering but am on the fence. I’d love to hear if you actually enjoyed college as a civil engineering major or if it mostly felt like a stressful grind. My backup plan is Geology, which I’ve heard has tougher job prospects, so I’d really appreciate some insight on whether civil engineering is worth it in the long run. Thanks!

Yung min setback(5m) po ba ng structure from RROW applicable sa brgy road?or national road lang?thank u.

Hello everyone. I am a new foreigner student in a Chinese university. My thesis project is going to be about a Fly Ash and GGBS Geopolymer. Another Chinese guy has already made the control mixture but he doesn't want to help me. Actually what is happening is that I am able to find papers that discuss usage of Anhydrous Sodium MetaSilicate for this Geopolymer but the strength achieved is around 45 MPa. That friend achieved a strength of 70 MPa when he used Sodium Hydroxide along with Anhydrous Sodium MetaSilicate while using a few two unknown super plasticizers. He consulted a Chinese paper to reach his control mixture and I am unable to find such a paper in English that utilized Sodium Hydroxide too and achieved a strength north of 60 MPa. Can someone who is into this field help me find a paper that discusses these things? (Basically his control mix and mine can be same because the difference in our research starts AFTER the control mix)

Sorry for the throwaway, weighing up a long-term career move and hoping for some insight from my fellow engineers -

Currently weighing up 2 offers that are quite different forks in my career but both in civil engineering -

1. Small consultancy doing land development and local municipal jobs, basically a senior engineer leading a small team of about 3 engineers, very relaxed work culture and everyone gets along well, director has said that the company is going to an employee-owned business model in the future and I am interested in purchasing a stake and participating in winning work, growing the business etc

2. Large construction firm doing big infrastructure work, would be a design engineer supporting the construction team, work would be fairly stressful, demanding role and potentially Saturday work. Being a big firm, maybe potential for quicker promotion and moving up (maybe?)

I'm leaning towards the small land dev firm and cementing a long-term career as some of their senior leaders reach retirement, could be a good option.

Pay and WFH flexibility is equal

For processing the FOIF EL302A data, I need this Software. But, it do not show any download option. Although we can find it on its Chinese website (the language of the software is also Chinese).

I want its older English version. If anyone have this file named "FGO_20140326_EN_setup.rar" please send it to me.

Hello everyone, I would really appreciate if you could give some suggestions on what my realistic salary increment expectations should be. Below is my background:

Company: A big Multinational company

Office Location: Richmond, Virginia

Job Title: Civil Engineer

Discipline: Water, Stormwater, Wastewater

YOE: 1.5 ish (it’ll be one year at this company as this is my first job out of college, 2 3-month internships(one with the same company and another somewhere else))

Current Salary: $70,000

Certification: None

Perks: 15 PTOs, one floating holiday, one sick leave, health insurance, 401K (not sure about the matches)

The company usually offers 3-5% of increment on the base pay(70K) but this also depends on your performance.

Duties: My majority of work was in Water sector on handling big database, GIS work Stormwater: development of models in HECRAS, Permit reviews, etc

I think I’ve done pretty well in my first year so does my hiring manager but currently I work under a different manager whom I report to on day to day basis and he is the person responsible for the year end review and salary increment. He has seen my progress majorly on handling of the database.

My negative though would be not having an FE yet. I am taking the FE next week though and hopefully I’d pass.

My hiring manager said that he has heard only positive or very positive feedback on me and he said he expects a good year of end review. I haven’t been able to pop up the conversation for the salary negotiations with the manager I report to but I have recently submitted the self evaluation form and I expect that the follow up conversation should be scheduled in upcoming week or two.

I am hoping to get 78-80K. I don’t really know how it works but is it very big ask? So my question is, what should my realistic ask should be for an increment?

TLDR: Leave govt to be closer to family?

Hi All -

Currently govt employee (~2years), total 7 yoe, in CE, w/ 3 years PE ~105k salary. My partner and I have our hands full with a little one and just became SAHM due to feeding issues. We feel disconnected and are considering moving closer to family to help out and be closer to them.

I previously worked private consulting and while I enjoyed the work was very stressed and worked longer hours. I currently really enjoy my govt job so far: interesting work, decent pay, good benefits, short commute, flexible hours and work from home 50% and great work life balance.

We currently live outside a metro area. We did not anticipate little one when buying our home. It is an older home and has been somewhat of a headache: flooded garage, fence blowing over, lots repairs in general. Hard to find the time to fix myself and don’t have the money to pay contractors pricing. It is a 1000sqft but the layout makes it feel cramped, there are no sidewalks, it is off a busy street, we sometimes get unhoused passing by (no encounters but still feel somewhat unsafe walking just alone). There are not a lot of kid friendly areas and do not feel any sense of community. On the plus side we have easy access to amenities and outdoors which we value a lot, very close to work, and a small backyard (not all houses have in area), and low mortgage interest rate (3.5%).

I’ve come up with three potential solutions:

1. Stay at current job and move to more desirable/kid friendly area and newer house with less maintenance. Pro: Stay fed, still have outdoor access Con: Finance would be tough for likely 5 years (likely house poor and not saving a lot), family still far away and may not find community and still want to move
2. Move to DMV area and apply for different fed position. Pro: Very close to family, remain fed. Con: Higher housing, higher cost of living, lower pay for similar position
3. Go back to private consulting and move to SW VA. Potential remote work for similar pay, benefits/PTO not as good.  Pro: good outdoor access, closer (~1.5hrs to family), potentially more kid friendly activities, lower cost of living and housing. Con: More stress and longer hours, may not get as much little one time, comparable local jobs pay may not be ample for one income, loss of pension and fed benefits if leave before 5 years

There are a lot of what if scenarios - Try to get remote govt job, try to get city/state job, come back to govt later in career.

Trying to figure out what is best for my family. Has anyone been in a similar boat and what did you decide?

Hey all, I’m currently a sophomore college student majoring in Civil Engineering. I’m having some doubts about the major and am looking for advice on how to move forward.

I originally joined civil because I have a passion for transportation. Specifically, I love thinking about how the ways we design transportation affect the behaviors of those using it. In a professional setting, I see myself working on conceptual ideas rather than modeling something for a plan that has already been pretty much decided.

Lately though, I’ve had doubts about whether I actually enjoy the engineering side of civil engineering. A lot of this stems from my general lack of interest in all of my civil engineering classes. Whether it be cad, working with fluids and materials, or learning important engineering principles, I genuinely feel academically uninterested and unmotivated most days.

The other option I’m potentially looking towards is CS, because I have a lot of experience (roughly 5 years) with programming and I genuinely enjoy the act of programming, plus the logic that goes into it. I’m worried about CS too though, a lot of professional opportunities in the field don’t seem all that interesting.

All in all with Civil I know I love transportation, but I’m worried I won’t ever enjoy the engineering side of it. And with CS I enjoy the task of programming but I’m worried I wont ever feel satisfied by my professional life.

Based on the anxieties I’ve described, does one of these paths seem like a better fit for me than the other? Any advice would be much appreciated.