Civil engineers are better than you!

Wednesday, October 20, 2015

Civil Engineering

Engineering is the key to all of what we have invented and created today. There isn't one thing that you could show me that doesn't have some sort of application of engineering to it. That banana your eating while reading this was more than likely genetically engineered to make it not rot as fast, physically be bigger, and taste better. But to be more specific on what kind of engineering that I will talk about is civil engineering. I am a third year, junior, North Dakota State University civil engineering student specifying in structural or transportation engineering. Civil engineering can be explained simply by saying it is the design, maintenance, and construction of environments such as bridges, dams, canals, buildings, roads, etc.

You know all that summer time road construction that backs up traffic for miles and gets you beyond frustrated to the point of going on a pure road rage fiasco, you can thank civil engineers for all that. This is apart of the maintenance civil engineers have to consistently fix roads from getting deformed and also improve them so they can be much more safer in less favorable conditions.

Civil engineers should know a little bit about each kind of civil engineering, but they can be separated into 12 different categories each having a unique expertise. They are construction, structural, geotechnical, transportation, surveying, water resource, environmental, municipal, coastal, earthquake, and material. All of these are pretty self explanatory on what their expertise are and pretty much relate to one another in multiple ways, but I will go into detail with a few of the more interesting ones.

One that is more interesting and rather not self explanatory is the geotechnical engineering. Geotechnical is the dealing with analysis, design, and construction of the foundations, retaining structures, and slopes made from the earth. In other words they are mainly concerned with rock mechanics and soil mechanics on a site where you would like to construct your project. So any sort of geology background would be very useful in this subdivision of civil engineering, it just requires a bit more math than what an actual geologist would be use to.

My personal favorite is structural engineering because if you look at the picture to the side, this is the Palm Jebel Ali in United Arab Emirates and this is what a structural engineer would get an opportunity to design and create as a project for a public/private company. That is obviously a very creative and expensive project that has a few problems with it, which why it is not completely built yet, but is very close to completion.

Another great perk for being a civil engineer is the fact that you will be travelling quite a bit for your job and be outside helping out with the construction of the projects in the summer and being inside in the winter designing future projects on autocad. That's how it is at least in the Midwest, the two seasons of winter and construction. So when it comes to civil engineering, all you really need to do is look around outside and you will see something like a road, a building, sewer, ditch, small dam, anything, but it was designed by a civil engineer.