Designing public infrastructure and the equipment to build large structures is known as civil engineering. Construction workers are skilled at handling equipment such as bulldozers, paving vehicles, jackhammers, and welding. A civil engineer can handle some of this equipment and might have begun as a construction worker, but an engineer's real skill is in design and implementation.
Civil engineering differs from private sector engineering in that the term is applied primarily to public works such as roads, bridges, dams, and environmental improvements. Techniques used to construct office buildings have crossover into bridge building, but civil construction is a specialized science with its own catalog of terms and methods. Visit official website of Cochran Engineering for more info.
It is an excellent career to enter, and engineers have a high probability of finding employment. Because of the technical skills developed, engineers are desired by a wide variety of employers. For those focused on being a civil engineer, there were a total of 281,400 jobs in the United States in 2014. The number of jobs are expected to grow only 8 percent over the next ten years, but many engineers are retiring. There are sure to be plenty of job openings.
Civil engineering is important to states and the nation, because roads carry billions of dollars worth of goods every day. Roads and bridges must be able to withstand vibrations and the load of large freight trucks. While bridges and roadways can last for decades, they must frequently be inspected and repaired. Highways see the most frequent construction, because potholes are damaging to cars moving at high speed.
Almost every state has civil construction projects underway every year, but the size of a state's construction budget varies according to politics and finance. Building projects are an important source of jobs, and nearly two hundred thousand construction workers are employed by civil projects. The average salary for this industry was $29 in 2015. Building projects were funded during the Great Recession as an attempt to bolster falling employment.
Most engineers specialize in a particular type of project, because of the many variables and issues each subcategory involves. Building or even repairing a bridge might take a year. Work for the engineer begins with inspection of the site and drafting a proposal for work. Actual construction work is completed fairly quickly, while most of the wait has to do with design and approval.
Civil engineering does much to improve the environment and prevent contamination. As local governments are responsible for treating sewage, laying down and repairing pipes count as civil projects. These are less glorious than building a bridge, but they serve the public good and can be major undertakings. Click here for more details.
An engineering project might be implemented simply to preserve the environment, even though these efforts do not receive as much funding as infrastructure. Typical jobs include preventing erosion and creating ditches for fire control. Construction can render a hilly site safe for public buildings. It can also protect existing neighborhoods from natural disasters. Flooding, fault lines, and shallow ditches all receive attention from civil engineers.
