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Career Exploration

Civil Engineers

Also called: Civil Engineer, Design Engineer, Project Engineer, Structural Engineer

What they do:

Perform engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures and facilities, such as roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems.

On the job, you would:
  • Direct engineering activities, ensuring compliance with environmental, safety, or other governmental regulations.
  • Manage and direct the construction, operations, or maintenance activities at project site.
  • Inspect project sites to monitor progress and ensure conformance to design specifications and safety or sanitation standards.
On the job, you'll need:

Engineering and Technology

  • design
  • product and service development

Math and Science

  • arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, or statistics
  • physics

Arts and Humanities

  • English language

Business

  • management

Basic Skills

  • listening to others, not interrupting, and asking good questions
  • reading work related information

Problem Solving

  • noticing a problem and figuring out the best way to solve it

People and Technology Systems

  • figuring out how a system should work and how changes in the future will affect it
  • thinking about the pros and cons of different options and picking the best one

Verbal

  • communicate by speaking
  • communicate by writing

Ideas and Logic

  • make general rules or come up with answers from lots of detailed information
  • notice when problems happen

Math

  • choose the right type of math to solve a problem
  • add, subtract, multiply, or divide

Visual Understanding

  • quickly compare groups of letters, numbers, pictures, or other things

Realistic

People interested in this work like activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions.

  • Integrity
  • Dependability
  • Analytical Thinking
  • Attention to Detail
  • Initiative
  • Self Control

Computer aided design CAD software

  • Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D
  • Autodesk Revit

Presentation software

  • Microsoft PowerPoint

Analytical or scientific software

  • Minitab
  • The MathWorks MATLAB

Video courtesy of CareerOneStop.

Job Outlook

The job outlook for this position is Bright.

New job opportunities are very likely in the future. This career will grow rapidly in the next few years.

Median Annual Salary: $89,940

Education

Bachelor's degree is usually needed.