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December 6, 2002
A: FROM MENTOR MARY JO MULLEN
IN IL
I am a civil engineer, specifically a water resources engineer.
What I have
found useful in my education in civil engineering was solid
math and physics
skills. In college you will be taking a lot of these subjects.
Also, you
must be detailed oriented. A lot of problems and projects
require a lot of
detailed calculations that you must document every step you
take in the
process. There are many fields within civil engineering, so
some skills are
more important in certain fields and less in others.
I use a lot of computer modeling programs which help me predict
flooding
caused by various rain storms. Structural engineers use a
lot of modeling
programs too. A bit of programming comes in handy to be able
to interact
with these programs and write my own programs to sort and
compile the data
generated by the programs I use.
Water and wastewater engineers would use a good deal of chemistry,
to help
them analyze what is in groundwater, lake water and wastewater.
They can
determine the proper methods of treating water to make it
drinkable or to
meet water quality standards to allow it to be put into rivers
or lakes.
Finally, I think that what is most key to any engineer, and
especially civil
engineers, is good problem solving abilities. If you like
solving puzzles
and riddles, civil engineering is for you. A lot of civil
engineers that I
work with are not specialized in one area like geotechnical,
water resources
or structural. They are general problems solvers with a wide
background in
civil engineering. An industrial chemical company comes to
us and says, "We
have these pumps discharging water from our plant. They aren't
putting out
as much water as the design said they should, why?" And
then our engineers
figure out what all of the problems could be (Was the pump
designed right?
Is there a problem with the valves? Is there a leak somewhere?)
and
investigate and determine what the problem is.
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