I know dozens of engineers that strive to be average. I know even more that don’t care about anything other than putting in their hours for the week and clocking out. For the few that are over achievers, what’s your incentive? I’ve never really seen the guys that are really good/productive make any more money than those who suck at their job in this business.

I have been making connections with companies that continue to comeback for career fairs. The past 2 years I have class of 2028. Due to having to drop courses Im now going to be a 5th year senior. With the addition of a 5th year im also getting a construction Engineering Technology minor.

How should say now Im going to be a super senior snd how should respond when asked?

I have worked in civils for 30odd years, technology has not helped one bit. We now have paperwork (actual paper) literally drowning us. H&S is deranged, QA is a paper bog. Every single aspect of a largish project is driven by paper. Most of it comes down from an office that never goes to an actual site. Iam working on a smallish site and we have document controllers (FFS) scanning in paper docs and not keeping up. Anyone else just plain fed up and disillusioned by the sheer waste of energy, skill and production?

Edit: I am talking mainly on site and the overall process, we have the Apps and the cloud processes but are bogged down with paper along with the non engineering processes, systems, KPI's, data inputting. Most of which don't bring anything to the client or finished job

Hey everyone,

I have been working in IT for about 2.5 years, software engineering, AI systems, cloud infrastructure, and IT operations. I am good at it but honestly IT feels cooked right now. The field is saturated, a lot of traditional IT work is getting automated, and the job market in Canada is brutal.

I have been exploring Civil Engineering, specifically Transportation Engineering, as a potential pivot. My thinking is that transportation infrastructure in Canada is massive right now. Ontario Line, GO Expansion, Eglinton Crosstown, electric bus fleet electrification, there is a lot happening and it feels more future proof than traditional IT.

My background in AI, machine learning, computer vision, and data analytics actually seems relevant to transportation research, things like intelligent transportation systems, connected and autonomous vehicles, road safety analysis, and transit optimization all use AI heavily.

I am considering applying to a Civil Engineering graduate program at McMaster to make this transition official.

A few questions for anyone who has done something similar or works in transportation engineering in Canada:

1. Is transportation engineering actually a good field to get into in Ontario right now or is it also competitive and saturated?
2. How do employers view someone with a CS background entering Civil Engineering through a graduate program?
3. Is P.Eng realistic for someone coming from a CS undergraduate degree?
4. Any specific certifications or experience that would help break into this field faster?

Any honest advice appreciated. Thanks.

hi, everyone!!

i'm a senior civil major and i have officially registered for the fe exam as of today!!!

i'm adding a lot of exclamation points but inside i'm freaking out!!!!:D i registered while in class (we were talking about the fe) and i started tearing up thinking about how real this all is.

all my friends and i are taking it within a month or so of each other over our semester break, and i'm so scared. the first time pass rate for our school is pretty high, around 85ish? but thats based on super smart students who mostly have 4.0s, and i do NOT have a 4.0 lol.

i know i'll be more confident once i study really hard (friends all are starting to set up study groups, plus make our asce club have it as an event), but i am so nervous. i'm not great at exams and i always overthink everything.

besides obviously studying and watching fe prep videos, does anyone have any general advice/tips for taking the fe? any advice is appreciated, thank you!:)

I graduated in late fall of 2025, but was unable to work as a family member had a medical emergency and I was taking care of them up until June. I ended up applying everywhere, but all I got were 3 (2-3 round ) interviews that went no where and a couple “position has already been filled” messages.

I finally got a job offer to be a Field Engineer for Kiewit which from what I saw/heard it was going to be a shit job, but I thought it’d be different since I have other friends that are also FE’s at Kiewit, but they have chill jobs with a good schedule that RARELY goes over 45 hours a week.

Currently I come in at 6:30am-6:30PM and sometimes even stay till 7-8PM along with having to sometimes take work home (other FE’s as well). I barely started and my mental health is already taking a dive. I have no time to myself, I have no time to take care of my dogs, I have no time to pursue/maintain relationships. I just don’t fit in with this project, and from what I heard the project is over budget and months late.

We have already lost 5 FE’s and I’m guessing they’re trying to replenish, but it’s a shit show. I’m attempting to contact my old employer for my internship cause at least they respected employees time there. Where I’m at I didnt get my lunch till about 4PM and I have to work through it since “thats what everyone else does”.

What would you guys recommend if you were in my shoes.

I am a second year civil engineering student who was is about to repeat the year or may be discontinued from the course i am studying.this all happened because in my final semester i was just attending classes and not studying and also not doing assignments i felt like i could be serious and try to study when it was close to final exam.
Time past quickly and when it was just days to the final exam i began to rush to study but i realized i just wasted a whole semester as I couldn’t understand what i was going to read.in my confusion I decided that i should not take the exams and just skip them,i knew i was going to have to choices either I would repeat the whole year or be expelled from the course.i don’t know how to tell my parents the news,i am afraid of how they will react qnd I feel i have disappointed them as i used to always get straight As in highschool and they put their hopes in me as the only child in family to get a good job as an engineer.
I regret what my actions and i know I didn’t do my best,i have hope that if i get a second chance i will do my best and be serious.
I also have a feeling that i am going through this hardship because i was not doing my religion properly.
I have never felt this before and this my first time ever in my life that i haved failed and messed up this badly.i am feeling a bit depressed,plz advise me

I am hoping to apply for a PE with the state of Utah, but have three years experience in Hawaii (last one will be in Utah). I took the Utah PE exam. Will I be able to get my license even though some of my experience is out of state?

As of today, I have switched from mechanical engineering to civil engineering in college. I feel as if it more closely aligns with my career goals and interests, as I have always been impressed and curious about architecture, design choices, etc. I also liked ecology in high school, on top of having completed professional research about coastal water quality as a result of urban infrastructure.

The catch is this — I see everywhere on social media that civil engineering is the lowest paying and that civil engineers do not make good money. I also see people describe civil engineering as the worst degree. So, is it true that civil engineers don’t make good money and also, why do people perceive civil engineering to be a bad degree (im not saying it is, I just see a lot of engineering students mocking civil engineering)?

please help 😭 🙏

So my thesis is assessment of pavement and I have a problem with expressing the failure pattern 😭

So the road have three sections - 1,3 - flexible and 2 - rigid, at first I compared the failure pattern with low , medium and high severity quantity, but the teacher rejected, so I changed into this comparing the deduct value, it fine in the logic of comparing the deduct value to see the failure pattern ( first is raw deduct value, second is percentage of each total deduct value) , but they still didn't like it and I am out of brain 😭

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I often find myself responsible for assigning work to several junior engineers and reviewing it despite not being a PM or a supervisor. This isn’t a big deal, except for with one junior staff member in particular who struggles with following basic directions (amongst other struggles). This person will often “turn in” work that isn’t even halfway complete and/or reflects a total misunderstanding of the task. I spend a disproportionate amount of time reviewing/commenting/correcting/starting over this person’s work and it’s affecting my ability to get my own work done.

I’ve tried several different methods of giving instructions (verbal, written, simplifying tasks, only giving one bullet point at a time, repeat back to me to ensure we’re on same page, etc.) but it hasn’t led to much improvement. I’ve also tried casually/respectfully establishing some basic expectations but it isn’t well received since I’m not their boss.

Their supervisor is aware of the issue and is in total agreement with me about underperformance, and has even hinted at wanting to get rid of them eventually. But unfortunately the supervisor has never sat down with them to discuss expectations, goals, improvement, etc. despite my repeated suggestions to do so as a former supervisor myself.

I feel like I’m caught in the middle and there’s only so much I can do from my current seat without overstepping. Any tips?

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I think half of this will be gone in 20 years time, it's an incredibly important site and archeological institutions in Wales do not the funds to secure it.

I‘m talking about scalable fields like geotechnical drilling, or also less scalable ones.

Finally, after dozens of virtual meetings and phone screenings, an employer has invited me to their office for an in-person panel interview to meet 6 different people immediately after presentation!

I want this to be a stellar experience, kindly tell me your tips, dos and don'ts.

I recently graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree and I’m trying to get into construction, specifically Project Engineer roles.

The problem is that I don’t have much experience with Bluebeam or AutoCAD. Most of my CAD experience in school was with SolidWorks, and I’ve had no exposure to AutoCAD. I also have basically no experience using Bluebeam.

I’ve been seeing these programs listed pretty frequently in Project Engineer job postings, so I want to start learning them before I get into a role.
For those of you working as Project Engineers, Assistant Project Managers, or in construction:

● What’s the best way to learn Bluebeam from scratch?
● What parts of AutoCAD should I learn? Do I need to become proficient, or is basic familiarity enough for a Project Engineer?
● Are there any good free/cheap courses, YouTube channels, or other resources you recommend?

I’m not trying to become a designer or CAD specialist. I mainly want to be competent enough with these programs that I can walk into a construction PE position and not feel completely lost.

Any advice from people actually working in construction would be appreciated.

Hello, I'm trying to transition into Infodrainage lately but i'm having few curiosities on how few results are attained. Well i'd love to have insights from fellow Land Development Engineers from United States.

I have few questions regarding modelling of Bioretention

next i noticed while importing rainfall from NOAA it takes data at 30 minutes interval so i'm missing calculations for say 15 minute /20 minute TOC. It directly takes same value of rainfall intensity from 0-30 min and then 30 -60 minutes and so on.

Due to financial reasons I couldn't attend university for civil engineering full time anymore. After a brief stint of no college I discovered an online ABET accredited civil engineering program through Oregon State University. This seems to be my only path to enter the field right now, but im wondering if there is any stigma against it? I think of course if I pass the FE exam that will be proof I know my stuff and didn't cheat but I do worry it will make it harder to be hired with an online degree.

How do you guys who currently work in the industry feel about this?