Civil Engineer Pros & Cons

Video Transcript

"Hello. My name is Jerry Elliott. I'm a Managing Partner of a firm, a Civil Engineering firm in Eugene, Oregon. Webber Elliott Engineers. I've been asked to tell you some of the pros and cons of being a civil engineer. I'll start with the positive side, pros. First of all the work as a civil engineer is seldom routine. And that is when we work on one project and then go to the next one, they're enough different that you're not in a rut or you're not always doing the same thing all the time. Another pro of being a civil engineer, is that it's a well respected profession. You are considered a key member of the community and well liked in general. Another nice thing that a lot of guys like about civil engineering, is it's neither an indoor nor an outdoor job. There are opportunities to be outside, there are opportunities to be inside. And so, you are not, again stuck in the same routine. And the other positive that I can think of is that as a profession it generally pays a little bit better than lots of other professions. Now on the other side, the cons of being a civil engineer, include, as civil engineers when we put together a set of plans or documents, if there are errors in those documents we are liable for them. And there can be a significant amount of liability exposure being a civil engineer. The second thing that I can think of is during an economic slowdown, as the amount of money that flows into the economic system pulls off a bit, there can be slow downs in the engineering profession. Less infrastructure is built, less money is spent on the things that we design. And so there are periods of time when as a civil engineer, you're not necessarily having a steady stream of income. Another con that I can think of is, as servants, that is in a service industry, there is really a cap to the amount of money that you can make as a civil engineer. It's not like being a movie star where you're going to, your design is going to be used over and over again and you're going to get millions and millions of dollars. And finally I would think that the key negative of being a civil engineer, is we have deadlines, we have obligations, we have duties to our clients. That means deadlines, and there can be a certain amount of stress in the profession. So that's a brief recap of some of the pros and cons of being a civil engineer."