Career In Civil Engineering: What Does A Civil Engineer Do?

I am sure you remember pictures from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilization from your schools’ textbooks. Their cities were planned, and roads were crossing at 90-degree angle. Planning of cities almost 3000 years ago to today’s modern days magnificent buildings are designed and developed by Civil Engineers. One of the oldest branches of engineering and most recognizable engineering careers are civil engineering. Modern civil engineering branch out into many sub sectors and specializations, so if you are wondering what civil engineers do and how civil engineering impact our lives, then you are at the right place, continue reading to know more.

Modern day civil engineering deals with varied problems of human interaction with environment.  Although if you ask a common man who are civil engineers? they will answer that people who build buildings and roads are civil engineers, but civil engineering is much larger discipline, from building Big architectural monuments to studying geology all can get covered in civil engineering. such a vast discipline can be roughly divided into below 09 sub disciplines. Although some of these engineering streams have grown into a separate engineering streams but they can be considered under wider array of civil engineering.

1. Civil engineering systems- An engineering branch which promotes and devise the systems to handle complex civil engineering problems, are comes under preview of Civil engineering systems. The purpose of civil engineering systems engineering is to help integrate the entire civil engineering ‘project life cycle’ from concepts, through planning, designing & construction.
2. Water resources engineering – As a natural resource water has immense value to human life, without water we can not have human life possible on planet earth, The branch of Civil management which deal with management of water is called as Water resource Engineering. Inherently this civil engineering branch covers aspect of Environmental Engineering, Hydro engineering concepts, meteorology, conservation of resources & management of resources. Specialist engineers who study water resources management gets involved with water resources projects like Dams and conservation of water resource projects.
3. Municipal or urban engineering- Cities have become epicentre of human life, earlier when economies were more Agri-dependant then cities were having less pressure but now when economies have pivoted to become industrial economies then pressure of city infrastructure has been increasing day by day thus emergence of Municipal or urban Engineering have come into existence. Urban Civil Engineers takes care of designing, constructing, and maintaining of urban Infrastructure like Sewers, city roads, Tunnels, Public utility infrastructure etc.
4. Construction engineering- Construction Civil engineering includes planning and execution, material handling, and site development based on hydraulic, environmental, static, and geotechnical requirements, because construction companies tend to have higher economic risks than other types of engineering businesses, thus in construction civil engineers are often involved in more commercial transactions, such as contracts and technical data protection etc.
5. Environmental engineering- Environmental engineering often involves the treatment of chemical, biological or thermal waste, the purification of water and air, and the restoration of contaminated sites after disposal and control of accidental pollution. The engineers of this Civil engineering branch are fighting with most eccentric problem of our times that environment pollution due to increased and irresponsible human activities. NGOs. Think tanks, and Government as well as private sector firms have good opportunities available for environmental engineers. This engineering branch is also available as separate engineering discipline for student to pursue a career in environmental sciences.
6. Geotechnical engineering- Geotechnical engineering branch of studies performs research and inspection soil & rocks of the civil engineering system. This require knowledge of soil science, material science, mechanics, and hydraulics, which is used to design foundations, retaining walls and other structures, with safety and economically. At planning phase of any Highrise building geotechnical engineers are of utmost importance. This branch of civil engineers has scope of employments in many public and private sectors firms.
7. Surveying- Surveying is a process by which a surveyor measure dimensions and characteristics on the near surface of the earth. It has developed in a particularly important branch of civil engineering as even before planning began for any civil project, surveyors are required to submit this survey report as survey report is a crucial part of planning stage as it lays path for further development of plan. Surveying can further divide into two subsets of Land Surveying and Construction surveying. Government and privet sectors are having good scope of employment for surveyors.
8. Transportation engineering- Transportation branch of civil engineering is concerned with Transportation of Goods & People with safety and without disturbing living ecosystems. In modern urban societies this is a remarkably high In-demand career option for civil engineers as movement of goods and people within cities and between cities have taken a CenterStage and become synonymous to development and growth prospects. Both Government and private sectors have opportunities for Transportation engineers.
9. Structural engineering- Structural engineering deals with the structural design and structural analysis of bridges, buildings, overpasses, aerostructure (air Strips, ATC towers etc), towers, offshore oil and gas fields, tunnels, and other structures. Identification of various load factures and measures ensuring structural balance and fulfilment of purpose is prime responsibilities of a Structural Engineers. Earthquake engineering can also be counted a subset of Structural engineering. Their as several vacancies for structural engineers in both, government, and private sectors and as these type of civil engineers plays a very crucial role thus scope in this sector is good.

I hope you have got an idea about various roles a civil engineer can play and its importance in Society. Stay tuned for more such information.

All the best.