Becoming a Civil Engineer in America - Essay Example

Name: Instructor: Course: Date: Becoming a Civil Engineer in America For many centuries, engineering was classified either as civil engineering or military engineering. Military engineering dealt with designing and building roads, bridges, and trenches for military purposes, but civil engineering was only about designing and construction of all other public and private buildings. Military engineer faded and the name civil engineer existed to the present day and is the one dealing with planning, designing, and building both public and private projects. Civil engineers are known to use complex mathematical and scientific formulas, equipments and concepts to ensure that buildings they construct are safe and well built to hold up its weight, against weather storms, and other natural disasters. This proposal will explore in details why I want to be a civil engineer in America. It will explain what civil engineering is. So why do I want to be a civil engineer in America? This has been a troubling question since I was a kid in elementary school. I was so eager to be a driver of a giant construction Caterpillar excavator because I use to like how it could maintain forestry access and hauling roads easily without any difficulty. When I recall about my past, I can now remember being the only kid in the neighborhood with toy road construction trucks chest. Therefore, this shows that my engineering dream started long back while I was a young kid. And as I grew up, I started reading about civil engineering, a profession that involves construction of buildings, canals, roads, and bridges. When I perused more about civil engineering, I agreed with Phillips (1997), that civil engineering is all about doing new things in new ways. Even though pursuing any engineering degree is not an easy job, I have determination that, civil engineering is the field of study or career that I want to pursue for the rest of my life. What is civil engineering? This occupation is not easy to be understood by everybody. There are a lot of responsibilities that engineers must work on in order to plan, construct, and even operate services to fulfill crucial human needs. Also, as Bugliarello (1994) and Oates (1993) put it, Civil engineering is “the modification of nature to create and improve human habitats.” With the mixture of Mathematics and science subjects, civil engineers can solve real problems. Ahead of deciding to chase a career in this field of civil engineering, I need to have many characteristics that will help me decide if I am the right candidate for this career. But in most cases, just like me, engineers can be found engaging and enjoying their childhood time with toys and structural sets that are related to real construction machines and equipment. When these people get into the real world of engineering, they will get enjoyment from planning, drawing, and constructing buildings. Civil engineers also have that talent of seeing how important it is to use nature to make our world more civilized. Education As I have stated above, my young passion for to be a civil engineer led me to believe that I could excel in this field of civil engineering. I know the education of an engineer is not an easy one because it deals with mathematics and sciences subjects that most of us have some difficulties handling them. My first eight semesters at BSU, I have been taking basic classes like Calculus I - IV, statistics, differential equations, English, literature, speech, history, chemistry, and physics (BSU, BSCE requirements). After completion of the BSCE requirements at BSU, I plan to attend either Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Stanford University. These are the two top notch graduate institutions with the best civil engineering programs in U.S.A. Since these are privately own institutions, it not easy to get in. So if I do not qualify getting in there, then I will try the public ones like University of California—Berkeley or Georgia Institute of Technology (Meyer & Jacobs, 2000). The moment I will begin my graduate studies, I will be required to take classes like hydraulics (Fluid mechanics), dynamics, engineering analysis, statics and water treatment. These classes are meant to give an engineer a base to tackle and solve problems in the real world. By taking classes such as these, students will gain enough knowledge and be ready to face and solve problems they will encounter at their work place. In many learning institutions, students joint cooperative programs whereby they are able to study and at the same time work through these cooperative programs to gain experience (Grigg, 1998). I hope that the experience and knowledge I will gain from BSU and the graduate school will guide me into a bright and successful career as a civil engineer. Civil engineers use their experience and knowledge they gain in school to construct and maintain the physical surroundings we leave in (Phillips, 1997). Any work duty given to every engineer depends on areas of specialization in engineering. A public works engineer will concentrate on and be responsible to social needs in the society. On the other hand, a structural engineer is concerned with loads that a structure can carry or hold and must accurately calculate the total load that that mentioned structure can hold. Salaries When a company starts hiring new inexperienced engineers, they are usually allotted out with few responsibilities. And as these engineers gains some experience, they are also allotted more responsibilities. In all engineering fields, civil engineering pays the lowest of all. In the last few years, there has been an increase in starting salary for civil engineering graduates. Generally, salaries are more for people with higher degrees (BS vs. MS vs. PhD) (Magar, 1997). The average annual starting salary, according to US department of labor is less than $39,960 dollars. The US department of Labor provides the following data on Civil Engineering salaries: “In 2002, Median annual earnings of civil engineers were $60,000 the middle 50 percent earned between $48,360 and $74,700. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $39,960, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $91,010. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of civil engineers in 2002 were:” Industries Salaries ($) Federal government 67,400 Local government 62,200 Architectural, engineering, and related services 59,000 State government 58,300 Nonresidential building construction 54,200 Usually, people who pursue a career in the field of civil engineering do not do so because of salary. But, just like me, they get satisfied from doing good done by helping the needy either socially or economically. Helping the public’s most common needs like water, food and building roads in poor countries is what interests me the most. You find people in some African countries trekking for miles and miles to fetch water, firewood or taking their little produce to a buying centre situated miles away. They do so because they lack roads or mode of transport in general. The duty of creating an efficient and safer way of supplying water to an ever-increasing global population is one of the problems I dream of solving as a civil engineer. Since there are a lot of different specialties in the field of engineering, I have chosen to specialize in water resource management because the field of water resource management is getting great. This occupation deals with the safe and adequate supply of water to the public. Currently, BSU is considering constructing a greenhouse to recycle its wastewater and I am among a team of civil engineering students who will be working on this project. This will be a litmus taste to me because I have been chosen to lead a body of students to treat wastewater to clean, health water for our school. So what can we predict about the future of engineering students? Owen (2009) predicted that employment is not a big problem because engineering graduates are highly employable, with 94.3% in work three years after graduating. He also claims more engineers would be needed than colleges could supply (Owen, 2009). However, Reid (2009) in his article reports on how U.S.A has failed to achieve its goal of doubling the number of university graduates with a bachelor's degree in engineering. Enrollments in schools of engineering across the country have dropped dramatically, but universities are now using outreach programs to boost college enrolment of engineering students (Anderson, 2003). But as long as there is job and salary increase, students will enroll more with expectations of making better lives for themselves. Due to modern day advancement in technology, young engineers have shown their skills and employers are now gaining confidence in their abilities. Some civil engineers are known to stay with one company for the whole professional lives. On the other hand, some engineers could choose to move from one company to company looking for more challenges and advancements. At some point and time, the younger engineers will slowly move the corporate ladder because the older and the more experienced engineers will retire. Therefore this is when the younger and qualified engineers should advance both personally and professionally. In conclusion, the desire to help the general public, the need to confront world challenges, and the necessity of doing positive things in my life are some of the few reasons why I wanted to be a engineer. After a thorough research, I can now conclude that civil engineering is the best field of study for me. Without doubt, I now believe that I have some qualities and intelligence needed to be a civil engineer. Apart from possessing the work habits I have that drive to be a successful civil engineer. So this is why I have chosen civil engineering to be my lifetime career. Works Cited Anderson, Lisa S. “Pre-university Outreach: Encouraging students to consider engineering careers.” Global Journal of Engineering Education 7.1 (2003): 87-94. Print. BSU retrieved on 29th October, 2012 from http://coen.boisestate.edu/ce/students/undergraduates/bsce-requirements/. Print. Grigg, N S. “Universities and professional associations: Partnerships for civil engineering careers.” Journal of Management in Engineering 14.2 (1998): 45-55. Print Magar, Victor S. “Personal Interview in 1997”. PE. PhD in Civil Engineering at the University of Washington (1997). Print. Meyer, M, and L Jacobs. “A Civil Engineering Curriculum for the Future: The Georgia Tech Case.” American Society for Civil Engineering Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice 126.2 (2000): 74-78. Print. Phillips, Winfred M. “The Challenge of Change for Engineering Education.” Presentation at the 1997 NSF Engineering Education Scholars Workshop. (1997). Print. Oates, T.D. “Practice of Professionalism” Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice. 119(1) (1993): 44-45. Print. Read More