Mr. Pirate,

You have a degree in civil engineering and you're working on enviro projects. Did you study how to build and design roads? Could you get a job doing that if you wanted to do something different?

Bah! Once I got my BSCE I swore I would not go back for grad school. I wanted to get *paid* for my hard work for a change.

Haven't returned since, and probably won't.

Daniel, environmental engineering is one of the subspecialties of Civil Engineering. I specialized in that area and now design and manage the construction of water distribution system improvements. Sounds like the Pirate has a bit more varied workload than me though.

Environmental Engineers are the good guys. At the graduate research level they/we are the ones that try our best to keep the EPA functioning in the world of reality (rather than being led about by enviro-wackiness), and are the primary interface between the public and the terrifying labyrinthe of environmental regulations. I tell you I appreciate the people I pay to deal with the regulators for me!

And yes, the enviro-nuts tend to hate most environmental engineers with a particular passion, because they/we generally *know* what we're talking about and can effectively call the BS for what it is.

Transportation engineering is mostly cookie cutter these days. It's all formulas and standards. You get a good design program and the road pretty much lays itself out with not much more effort than telling it "here's where I want the road to go". The real excitement comes when you have to present your design before a public open house of "concerned citizens". *That* experience will add a few gray hairs...

All I have to say to you at this time is, "Let's go Oakland, clap, clap... clap, clap, clap, Let's go Oakland, clap, clap...clap, clap, clap"

The plumber and his subset, the water works / sewer works engineer has done more to extend the life and comfort of mankind than all the medical science put together. Welcome to the ranks - now go get registered and E&O'd.

Desert Cat,

Do you have to do a lot of math like mechanical or electrical engineers?

Trans eng might be cookie-cutter but there are some poorly designed roads out there. Since maybe you have a little more insight into it than the average person do you ever wince when you see a bad road?

In my own schooling defense, my company is paying a good portion of the degree, so why not take advantage. As for the PE, in the next year I will end up taking it after I finish off the masters....of course I have to relearn seismic design & brush up on the surveying because I haven't used them in a long while.

My personal prefernce is work on the wastewater side.

As for roads, its pretty much what the Cat said, you just got to read through the specific regulations for where the road will be and apply it. Some would consider structural design the same kind of cookie cutter approach. All the creative work is done on the water side.

I second the environuts part. Friend of mine is GM of a water district and the enviros hate him because he finds more useable water and thats bad because it means there will be growth.

A lot of te ppor road conditions are a result of poor upkeep. And yes I wince at a ugly road.

It's pretty cool that you're driving the enviromentalists nuts. You get bonus points for that.

Have you ever seen the "jughandle" road exit concept? It's big in the Northeast, I don't know if they're in Cal.

I do. I regulary curse the traffic/transportation engineers downtown when I pass through certain intersections.

Sometimes you've got to work with what you have, and they've done the best they (think they) can. And I don't have the big picture. But I swear sometimes I could do it better.

Re: math. I aced calculus and the advanced math courses I needed to graduate, but I don't really use it in day-to day engineering. Algebra is far more important than calculus for what I do. And most stuff that uses heavy math calculations (such as hydraulic modeling, transient analysis, etc) is computerized. I think the same is true with a lot of mechancal engineering too. Computerized models let you get a far better picture of what is happening than a year's worth of hand calculations will ever do.