When you’re driving home from work, do you ever think about the road you’re driving on? It’s one of those things that most of us take for granted. The street is just… there. We don’t wonder about the how or the why.
Someone had to think about it at some point, though, and that person was a civil engineer.
Civil engineering is a vital part of how any town grows and thrives. Roads, bridges, utilities, construction projects–it all comes back to civil engineers. So, what does a civil engineer do? Keep reading to find out.
What Does a Civil Engineer Do?
Before we can talk about what a civil engineer does, we need to answer a more basic question: what is a civil engineer? In the most basic terms, a civil engineer is an engineer who focuses on building public infrastructure.
Public infrastructure can include a wide variety of different things. As mentioned above, roads, public buildings, and even utilities like your water and sewage systems are developed by civil engineers.
Most civil engineers focus more on the design of these systems than the physical construction, planning out how a public works project should be built. That said, some also oversee some parts of construction themselves.
Civil engineering is a complex job, as many public works projects involve difficult calculations. For instance, when planning a building, there’s a lot for a civil engineer to consider, such as how deep to build the foundation.
In that decision alone, the engineer has to consider materials, maximum pressure, and more. Do you understand the difference between persistent vs non persistent VDI implementation? A civil engineer has to.
Types of Civil Engineer
We’ve established that civil engineers work to improve public infrastructure, but that’s only the most basic answer to the question, “What do civil engineers do?” The real answer is, “It depends.”
There are many kinds of civil engineers, each with their own areas of expertise.
As mentioned earlier, some engineers stick to planning. These are called consulting engineers. Others oversee project sites; these are contracting engineers. There are more important distinctions than this, though.
If a civil engineer specializes in planning buildings, they’re an architectural engineer. On the other hand, if they focus on roads and highways, they’re a transportation engineer.
There are many varieties and sub-fields of civil engineering. Many of them focus on disaster prevention or mitigation. Earthquake engineering, for example, is very important in areas that suffer frequent seismic activity.
There are also disciplines of environmental engineering, which focus on being eco-friendly. Sustainability is a core part of engineering, after all!
Engineering the Future
You no longer need to wonder, “What does a civil engineer do?” As it turns out, they do quite a lot! Different civil engineers have different specialties, but they all work to improve public infrastructure.
In the same way a civil engineer works to improve their city, a business owner needs to do a little ‘engineering’ to grow their company. Check our business blog for great tips and articles on expanding your business!
