A variety of careers in civil engineering
Helping solve problems in the real world
When Nigel Parker entered his first year in the University of Alberta in Edmonton’s engineering program, he knew he wanted to be an engineer. He just wasn’t sure what kind.
It wasn’t long before he decided that civil engineering was the right choice for him, so he pursued a bachelor of science and civil engineering. He then went on to get a master’s degree in the field before landing a job with Read Jones Christoffersen consulting engineers in Toronto, where he works on structural rehabilitation and building evaluations.
Engineering was part of his family heritage, he says. “My grandpa was a geological engineer. And since I was good at math and sciences in high school, it seemed to me that an engineering career just made sense.”
Why civil engineering? “It was the area that intrigued me the most, probably because it was the most personable of all the engineering disciplines. You get to work with multiple teams and with a wide range of people on many different projects. To me the best thing is that you’re never working in a silo. You’re working with contractors solving real world problems as they come up and trying to figure things out and put it all together.”
It’s also a field that offers a wide range of options, he says. “You can specialize in anything from building bridges to managing water resources.”
A civil engineering career path can take you into several specialties, including structural, environmental, hydrotechnical, transportation, construction, cold regions and engineering materials/mechanics, explains Brian Burrell, vice president of technical programs for the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) in Fredericton, N.B. “There are also civil engineering specialties or derivatives such as geotechnical engineering and survey engineering. Most civil engineers end up practicing in more than one discipline.”
As far as employment prospects are concerned, he says much depends on a person’s area of specialization, economic conditions, and the availability of current projects. Employment in construction engineering in particular can vary because of the cyclic nature of the industry.
It’s also a field that provides ample opportunities to work internationally. “A significant sector of the profession works on projects done by Canadian or multinational firms outside of Canada,” Burrell says.
Registration numbers confirm that this particular branch of engineering holds a strong appeal for students. At the University of Alberta, civil engineering is by far the largest and most popular of the engineering programs, reports Ergun Kuru, undergraduate program adviser.
As such, admission to the program is very competitive, he says. “There is no problem filling up our quota. Because of the demand, we’re constantly raising entrance requirements.”
All engineering hopefuls take the same courses in the first year, so they can explore different areas and decide upon their specialty of choice. Engineering specialization options at the university include construction, structural, technical, water resources, transportation and biomedical.
“On top of that you can include environmental engineering because it falls under the civil engineering program,” Kuru says. The university also offers a coop option which takes five years to complete because of the added practical work requirements.
He notes that beyond the prerequisite math and science abilities, good communications skills are an extremely important asset in the profession. “You also need to have good programming skills and knowledge of computational methods. A lot of the work in this field requires specialized design software.”
When Parker isn’t working at his day job, he serves as the chair of the young professionals subcommittee for CSCE. In that role he gets a first hand perspective on the employment landscape for young graduates.
He contends demand will continue to grow because of the projected increased investment in infrastructure projects.
“Many of the infrastructures we have today were built in the post-Second World War era and are reaching the end of their service life. It’s an area that will require significant investment. Anyone entering the field is in a good position because by all accounts we won’t have enough people to meet the demands of the future.”