Colleges to be a civil engineering 1

[jbnshah]

Hi,I am currently in High school, and was wondering what colleges u recommend for me to go to if I want to be a civil engineer, perhaps the Management side?

Thanks

 

[Ron]

There are literally hundreds of them! Most states have reasonably good civil engineering programs in the state university system. You won't specialize or even be exposed much to engineering management at the bachelor's degree level, so don't worry about that yet.

Depending on where you are located, there are some excellent schools available for BSCE programs...Univ. of Illinois at Champagne, Univ. of Louisville, Purdue, Georgia Tech, Florida, Univ. of Missouri at Rolla, etc....

 

[greenone]

Here's a link to rankings of civil programs:

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-civil

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/spec-doct-civil

It would help if you could narrow down what criteria mean the most to you-how much do you care about location? RPI is good in civil, but it's cold and snowy from Oct to April, in a bad year. Do you want an urban or rural environment?

How much can you afford? State schools are likely to be less expensive-any close to you? The first 2 years are pretty much the same for most engineers-specialty courses are higher level.

Look at what, if any, businesses recruit at the college you're interested in. Are you interested in those businesses?

Does your hs have college fairs?

Do you know any civil engineers to talk this over with?

 

[beej67]

Need to know 4 things:

Your Grades/Scores
Your Location
Your Price Range
Your Scholarships if any


With those 4 things, we could probably narrow you to 3 best alternates pretty easily.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[msquared48]

What branch of Civil Engineering would you be interested in? Do you even know yet?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask

 

[francesca]

Forget about Engineering Management; in most states you can't become a licensed engineer with that degree (Engineering Science or Technology are also red flags). No engineering company will put you into management without a license. Assuming you're an American, you want an ABET-accredited undergraduate Engineering (B.Eng.) program. You can do an MBA later, but it's probably a waste of time. (I have four colleagues with an MBA and only one is in management; none of the management have management degrees.) Construction Management would be a good post-graduate degree choice.

 

[jbnshah]

Thanks guys, this is good information for now. I haven't really looked in to the specializations, but will do so.

 

[psnyder]

I agree with francesca, but also have to add that your interests may likely change once you reach your senior year which is when you take your technical electives. In your junior and senior year, especially your senior year, of your civil undergraduate studies you really make the decision as to the direction you want to go. Your senior year is when you would take some construction management technical electives if management is still your main priority. You will not need to get your professional engineering license (PE) to be a magager if you go with and succeed in an undergraduate and graduate construction magagement program.

Also need to know your grades, location and price range. I am most familiar with the NE and good civil schools in the NE with low-moderate tuition fees: Penn St, University at Buffalo, SUNY EFC (affiliated with Syracuse), Pittsburgh, and can't forget West Point. Good SE schools with low-mod fees: NC State, GA Tech. Obviously in-state tuition is much cheaper for state schools.

PAUL S SNYDER, P.E.

 

[3feethighandrising]

Something else to weigh, is pick a school where it is feasible to get a good internship from a good engineering company. The intern experience you get will be as important or more important than just writing the name of the school on your resume. It is very hard to find internships, now with the economy, so I would chose to live in a city with intern possibilities.

I'd rather hire an engineer with a full year of intern experience (with good work references) from a state school, than a grad on the top five list with no experience.

Employers look for:

1. Work Experience
2. Work Ethic
3. Team Players

as well as education.

 

[jbnshah]

yeah, thats true. I actually have a scholarship to University of Louisville, and considering that there might be a internship opportunity with implementation new bridges at Louisville, I think its best to stay here.

Thanks again for your support.

 

[francesca]

U Louisville has a good CE program don't they? I took the FE there.

 

[beej67]

In-state tuition and scholarship opportunities are pretty important when choosing a school. If you have a scholarship to a local school and their program is reasonably good (ABET) I'd say take that opportunity unless you go for the big bucks. (Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, Ivy League)

This is a good article on college ROI:

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/06/30/top-20-colleges-that-offer-best-return-on-investment/

..with colleges ranked based on lifetime expected salary return on investment. The only stupid thing about the article is that the author apparently doesn't know the definition of ROI is a percentage, not a fixed number. So he writes an article about how MIT has the highest ROI of colleges, when in fact the highest ROI comes from Georgia Tech. The full list is here, and sortable by column:

http://www.payscale.com/education/average-cost-for-college-ROI

The actual top six ROI schools are:

Georgia Tech
BYU
UVA
William and Mary
Colorado School of Mines
Virginia Tech

3 of the top 6 in Virginia is because of the federal centralization of power I'd guess, but that's a political discussion we probably don't need to get into here.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[fattdad]

Va Tech.

f-d

¡papá gordo ain’t no madre flaca!

 

[HSIII]

Being from the smallest state, I'd have to say I'm partial to URI (lol).

Although Northeastern does provide "trimesters", where one of their "trimesters" is actually a co-op with an engineering company in your field (from what I heard).

Again, location, grades, and cost (including scholarships) are important factors, but in myh opinion not as important as accreditation of the program and internship or co-op opportunities.

Best of luck.

 

[bimr]

beej67 (Civil/Environme),

The whole aticle is garbage, not just the calculation for ROI.

The compensation numbers are self reported so who knows what people are actually making. If you believe the numbers, the dilbert from MIT will be making 50% more than the GT person sitting in the next cubicle (with exactly the same background and corporate position). That makes little sense.

The study also does not account for the value of particular fields of study. One may enroll in the proverbial basket weaving majors at MIT and one would expect the career earnings will be substantially less than for someone with a more rigorous course of study at a less expensive school.

 

[beej67]

Clearly the main thing the article misses, is the schools with the higher mean ROIs are largely the schools with a preponderance of technical degrees instead of humanities degrees. But that's not what the author was selling, so she didn't mention it.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[zelgar]

One thing you should consider is to apply to several of the out-of-state colleges. Sometimes out-of-state colleges will offer in-state tuition rates for good students. Also, check with the different colleges to see what scholarship programs are offered. Some may only be offered to out-of-state students.