Becoming an Engineer

Quite odd pursuit you have right there. If you want to grasp automation, consider turning over to electrical or mechanical engineering.

Actually as a civil engineer with interest in automation, you could fix all the poorly programmed traffic lights that you can find. Other civil engineers get involved with programming those PLC's but they generally do a poor job of it.

As a taxpayer, and being involved in process controls and automation, I can say that I am most disgusted with the way some of the traffic lights operate. I frequently observe 20 or more cars being stopped to allow just one car to cross the road. Consequently, all of those cars collectively consume at least a gallon of gas just accelerating to the speed they were cruising at before the light changed. That is a waste of fuel and poor intersection design and a rip off of my tax investment in the design of the road.

Fix that and you will be my hero.

From designing 38 ft bridges over small bodies of water to working on the design and installation of the Alaskan pipeline and everything in between are only a small example of what possibilities that you have. As you get more education and hopefully some intern experience you will have a better idea about which area you want to emphasize in your career.

Don't fret about it. Very few people go to college and stick with the same major or specialization within their major. Most of us made changes. You can too. As you are exposed to more you will have a better idea what is in civil engineering. In my area two of the smartest stock brokers are a former successful pro football lineman and the other is a civil engineer. They are both excellent stock brokers. I'm glad the engineer doesn't design anything within CE, he's better at stocks.

Good Luck, Old Salt

Think of your endeavor in education as a starting point in your career only. All disciplines in engineering should teach you how to look at and analyze things. That is the hard part of the job, figuring it out. As for the technical stuff, as one of my profs said, "we don't expect you to remember everything, but make sure you know where to look it up". And looking things up is even easier these days. I would say the a lot of engineers are not working in their field of original study, myself included, but,,, you have to start somewhere.