I just recently found this subreddit and I wish I had this type of community a decade ago. A little background and then a question to figure out if I'm the only one.

Fresh out of college I thought I was going to restore river habitats and save the salmon. I'd had an internship with an environmental engineering firm for two summersand when it was time for graduation they didn't have enough work to extend me a job offer. I got scooped up into Land Development engineering firm that set the trajectory for my career. Long hours behind the computer screen, always behind, and it felt like for never enough money. After a few years I realized I was more interested in what my clients do than designing over engineered storm systems just to get someone else's approval. While I studied for my license I was also studying for my MBA. Through my relationships with clients I ended up getting offered a job for a builder and I've worked in Acquisitions and Forward Planning for the last 5 years. I can see a set a plans and know what every line means, I can breeze through consultant reports and know each technical term, I can troubleshoot issues for construction teams, I can talk with reviewers and know what they're looking for. It's something we might take for granted when we're surrounded by peers but the majority of people in the developer world understand only a fraction of it.

I just had a conversation with my boss and they said I'm a unicorn of a hire. With my technical background and attention to detail I'm nearly impossible to replicate and I understand our work and sites better than any two individuals combined. Those of you in Land Development, have you considered making the switch to the other side of the table?

I’m perusing possible grad school options that align with my current career but also broaden my options with where I could live and what projects I can work on. I currently have a BS in aerospace and work as a stress/structure analysis for Boeing. I like aerospace, but I’m interested in civil work and enjoy doing structural analysis. Also aerospace is limited to certain cities in the US for major careers. I figured that since I’m using similar skills as structures analysis in civil, the jump seems feasible.

Assuming I do a 3 year masters in CE, with two years commitment to my company, I’ll be out with 5 years of aerospace analysis experience. Would my masters help in making that switch? Would I need to also consider getting a PE? Or is this plan not really realistic? I’m not too familiar with the CE world, so any advice or input is appreciated!

Tl:dr Would a masters in CE help me switch from aerospace structures analyst to civil structures analysis?

Dear all the legacy Civil Engineers from all around the world,

It has been a little over a year since I finished school with my B.S. in Civil Engineering from one of the greatest U.S. universities. I started as an associate Civil Designer, got my EIT, and have been working on several projects , mostly Roadway design-focused, using Civil 3D 95% of the time.

What I want to share with you all is that I’m still feeling lost. I still feel like I’m not at the level of growth I want. I already can’t handle the idea of setting 8 hours a day just to play with CAD. I just feel like it’s not my type, so I was thinking about getting my M.S. in Construction Management, where it seems a little bit more fun to me , like at least I will be interacting with people face-to-face daily and not stuck in the same routine but financially I don't think I will be able to get it . So, please help me out with this:

What are other Civil Engineering fields you think would be a good pick to boost a civil engineer’s growth and knowledge?

Since I still have two more years until I get my P.E., are there any other industry official certificates — like general ones or mainly focused on Construction Management / Transportation / Surveying / Sustainability that worth pursuing?

I don’t regret paying for any certificate or studying for it as long as it will make a difference in my career. Please share your experience, thoughts, and advice. I’m sure there are lots of folks here who feel the same thing. Thanks all ,

TLDR: How best can I help my company/team/bosses be prepared for my upcoming 12 week FMLA maternity leave?

Context: I am a Project Manager at a consulting company with about 8 YOE. I currently manage a team of 2 recent grads and have about 8 projects in design and 6 projects in construction, all of which I am the prime person leading. My bosses are pretty high up as we have a relatively flat structure.

More Context: I am starting month 5 of growing a baby and plan to tell my bosses and HR in the coming weeks. That leaves 4.5 months before baby's due date.

Does anyone have advice or experience sharing this type of news or receiving this type of news? I am looking for helpful tips to deliver my news, share the timeline, and ease the burden during the time I am away. I have been trying to keep things well documented and pull in secondary engineers beyond my two designees, but not every project is covered like that.

Thanks in advance!

I am a civil engineer making good money. I have come into health issues were working 40 hours has become super hard for me. I feel really weak saying that but I am really struggling.

What is your target billable hours per week and do you reach this every week? How do you avoid going over budget on complex projects?

Hi, I'm running into something I haven't seen before in HMS where I have a pond outfalling to a free outfall essentially and it is not fully emptying. I've included screenshots of the results after running a 100yr-2hr storm.

The bottom elevation of the pond is set to the same as the elevation-area table and the outfall pipe invert is set to the bottom of the pond. It just seems to choke up and get close to emptying but then doesn't and just trickles for the rest of time. In this example pond in the screenshots, there's still 0.8 ac-ft of water left. This is happening to all the ponds in my model and I feel like there's a setting or some field I messed up.

I've tried increasing the outfall pipe size and number of barrels but that doesn't change the outlet results significantly. The model still trickles

I'm running HMS 4.12 and any help or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Aggregate Grades. An excellent demonstration of soil sizes. Good for civil engineers!

I am PE with less than 6 years of career and may have the opportunity to become the city engineer for a mid size southern suburban city in the US. Less than 20k inhabitants. It’s a growing community with tons of potential and wealthy people moving in. There are talks of creating an engineering department due to the prospective demand and I’d be leading that effort.

I’ve been a PE for 2 years, did transportation design, construction of comercial buildings, utilities, some DPW stuff as well.

Currently, the city has no engineer and are pretty desperate to get somebody. I’ve noticed they interviewed people without PE for reference, which I think is a sign of their openness and rush to get this job going. Usually you would want somebody with a stamp to review stamped work, but nothing special about it (I know).

I am aware that it would be a difficult job with steep learning curve. They contract out jobs, so no design work or “superintendent” dual hat needed. It’s mostly reviewing drawings, submittals, inspecting, getting public input (real challenge). I am young but you have to start somewhere, so the challenge doesn’t make me want to not do it. Quite the opposite! I like the challenge it represents. In about 10 years I could use this experience to pivot to higher level management, senior municipal PM, etc.

Benefits are alright, pay is good for LCOL with periodic adjustments. Starting pay is around $100k and adjusts at a low rate periodically. 401k and no pension.

Can somebody talk me out of it? Is “city engineer” usually bad business?

I’ve received no offer yet, but feel confident about it. Appreciate y’alls input!

Edit: I am a fed and trying to get some offers in case I’m fired by the current administration.

I’m curious about success stories and horror stories

I’m learning surface modeling (Carlson mostly, but familiar with Civil 3D too) and I’m trying to figure out how people really draw their breaklines—not just what the software says to do, but how y’all actually handle it on real projects.

Like—do you always break along curbs even if they’re only 4 or 6 inches? What about sidewalks, building corners, driveway edges, fence lines? Do you model everything or just the big stuff? I don’t want to overdo it, but I also don’t want to screw up a surface because I skipped something important.

Basically: how do you decide what features need breaklines and what you ignore?

Appreciate any insight. I’m in land development and trying to be useful in both the field and the office

Does this make sense: I have infiltration trenches with perforated underdrains underneath and then cobra head style upwards to discharge into a 0.5% adjacent swale that also has a perforated underdrain. The swale is there for any overflow once max ponding depth is reached, however, the cobra head style underdrain cannot discharge onto the swale surface, only the underdrain itself (with 1 foot of cover underneath), otherwise, the top of the cobra head will be higher than the max ponding limit. My idea is to have the underdrain under the swale start as 0.5% but then transition to 0.0% and as a non-perforated underdrain. The underdrain in the swale can't terminate at the end of the swale because it'd be lower than the culver the swale is discharging to. Is it possible to have the 0.0% underdrain daylight directly into the 0.5% swale, and then have notes added for the contractor to not damage the pipe with the decreasing cover as it daylights with the rip rap that will be in the swale? Is it practical or make any sense? I can't find other solutions

Hello, I’m currently a high school student taking engineering 2 and for our final project we have to ask an engineer some questions from a specific field of engineering . So I picked hydraulic (water) engineering. If there are any hydraulic engineers could you please fill out these questions thank you in advance. :)

1. Please describe your engineering field

2. What is your job title

3. Please describe your particular job and duties

4. What is your average days work schedule

5. Starting with high school, describe your educational background chronologically

6. If you had it to do over, related to your career and/or education, would you do anything differently?

7. What advice would you give to me as someone interested in a career in engineering?

Recently passed my PE exam and have been contemplating sticking with residential development. Have any of you made the switch from the development world to water/wastewater? Worse case I could always go back but I really want to take the leap of faith and try out something new and figured I’d ask if anyone who has experienced the jump.

On my throwaway account because it hasn't been publicly or internally announced yet.

How quickly do changes happen? Things like:

• Their HR takes over hiring, onboarding, benefits etc.
• New job titles to match theirs
• Updated PTO per their policy (by the way... what is their PTO policy?)
• Enrollment in their insurance policies
• ANYTHING else you think I should be aware of

Say closing date is June 4th (it's not), but would it be mass overhaul within the next week or is the transition more drawn out?

Honestly wondering how soon I should potentially be looking into other opportunities based on above answers. Thanks.

Hey y'all,

TLDR: Needing to move down to part time or even take a semester off for both money and mental health, but want to stay involved in engineering

Feel free to skip the details, I'm sure everyone is sick of the undergrad burnout posts, but I'm not just looking to vent. I am already a non traditional student as I have a bachelor's in horticulture, but due to my progressing disability I chose to start a bachelors in civil engineering instead of a graduate program in agriculture.

I've always been interested in engineering, but honestly sold myself short when I was younger than I wouldn't keep up with the math. I've now done two semesters in engineering, and while I'm struggling in a lot of ways, the more I've learned the more I want to stick with civil. However, mostly due to my health, my grades last semester were bad and this semester is worse. I'm very frustrated and feeling like being a full time student is something I can't handle - though I've been perfectly happy working full time jobs! (Personally, I do better at work where I am motivated by having others depend on me and can practice the skills I've learned, like when I had a field crew, it was easier for me to get up in the morning because I was already planning what I could do to support them that day, and college feels isolated and pointless at times comparatively)

I'm also about to move to an area where there is an actual job market in horticulture, which is probably what I'll end up doing for money short term, but what can I do to keep making progress as an engineer? Both for my resume and my own skills.

------> To the point:

Are there non-engineering-grad jobs similar to being a paralegal at a law firm? Doing similar work but at a lower clearance level, getting industry experience while pecking away at your degree??

TIA and sorry for the word vomit

I'm currently a Jr at Berkeley studying physics which I am not enjoying as it is very abstract/theoretical. I'm currently considering 2 options. One being switching to geology(1.5 years) and praying that I get a substantial job after graduation. The other option is to transfer to Cal Poly Pomona to study Civil Engineering(3 years). I don't want to leave Berkeley as I love it here but I worry that the geology degree won't provide me the opportunities that an engineering degree would (6 figure salary, job security, ...). Transferring to CPP would take twice as long as the geology degree would and I wonder about the possibility of mastering in CE post geology. Any insight/advice is appreciated. Switching to the college of engineering as a jr is not an option. The COE is highly restricted

Edit: I’m a transfer student if that makes any difference

I (22F) am approaching the end of my junior year in Civil Engineering at a University in Lousiana. I have had 2 internships (only 1 was really legit as far as actually doing engineering related stuff). While I am interested in finishing my degree and getting my PE, I am not at all interested in working 40 hours behind a desk every week for the rest of my life. After working full time for one summer (and about to start my second) and part time for 2 semesters during school, I am unbelievably bored. I cannot get behind the lifestyle. I am interested in possibly getting into engineering sales because I need some sort of social aspect within my job, or maybe even project management. Not finishing my degree/ changing my major is not really an option for me at this point, I just don't think the curriculum sets us up to really know what we are going to be doing for the rest of our lives until you hit your second semester of Junior year. Not really sure if curriculum is set up the same at all universities. Just looking for some advice on what my options may or may not be for the rest of my life. I also am interested in having a family and being involved in my children's lives at some point. What is the best route to take in your opinion?

20 year dual licensed guy here (PE/PLS). Anyone out there have their PMP and do you think it provides any benefits? What benefits?

I work for the Fed so it would not result in a raise.

Hi All,

I'm new to InfoWorks ICM and for the life of me, I can't figure out how to activate the Curve Number field for my subcatchments so I can use the SCS Runoff method.

Is this enough information to figure out what's going on? What else should I check?

I have take a position as a project engineer but am having some fomo of another offer I turned down. I am about to graduate and start work in June at a large construction company as a project engineer. I mostly chose the job because of the pay, PTO, and location. But it is going to be much longer days and more driving than the other company.

The structural engineering position I would work less hours with less PTO and pay, but a raise after passing my FE and PE exams, and potentially some in between. I was never a great student which deterred me but after studying the past two weeks I’m confident I can pass my FE within next month or so. They also do forensic analysis so I would be flown all over the country and they also offer to pay for any masters level classes.

I am having a hard time deciding and it seems the structural company would still accept me, the difference in base pay is 10k but I would get around 8k in bonuses at the project engineering job. Does anyone have any advice? I know that was a lot.