Gibson 1

Alex Gibson

Mr. Haslam

Period 2

10 February 2018

Career Research Paper

Civil engineering has been a big part of the United States since the front half of the

eighteenth century. According to the Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia, the duties of civil

engineers were originally handled by the military and their engineers. As time went on, however,

civil engineering developed into what it is today. This development occured due to military

engineering growing into a more specialized science more dedicated to fortification and

weaponization. With this specialization, civil engineering was passed along to civilians. One

major example of history in civil engineering is the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It took

14 years to build and cost 15 million dollars, which in the 1880s was a lot of money ($320

million by today’s standards). One famous historical civil engineer is Joseph Strauss, the civil

engineer responsible for the Golden Gate Bridge. A a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

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In general, a bachelor's degree is required to become a full-fledged civil engineer. The

degree should usually be simply civil engineering, or engineering with an emphasis on civil

engineering. Some local colleges that offer this education are SUU, USU, UVU, and more. In

order to become a civil engineer, you typically just need the education to be proficient in the

field. It should only take four years of school, and many get hired before graduating college.

Other jobs that relate to civil engineering are, of course, the other subdisciplines of engineering.
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However, there isn’t really any way around getting the degree, when it comes to things like

starting as a janitor and working up. The Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia states, “The

civil engineer must have a thorough knowledge of all types of Surveying, of the properties and

mechanics of construction materials, the mechanics of structures and soils, and of hydraulics and

Fluid Mechanics. Among the important subdivisions of the field are construction engineering,

irrigation engineering, transportation engineering, soils and foundation engineering, geodetic

engineering, hydraulic engineering, and coastal and ocean engineering.” a a a a a a a a a a a a a

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The daily duties of an engineer depends on the days. Some days, they meet with clients to

see what kind of things need to be engineered, for example, if a city council decides they need a

new bridge or road, they would meet with a civil engineer, talk out the details, and the engineer

would begin planning the new construct. Other days, engineers could be in offices designing

their product or in labs testing it. Engineers fit into their respective companies by designing and

creating products that will help the company with it’s objective or they create products for their

company to sell on a large scale. Between designing, creating and testing, engineers typically

spend forty to fifty hours per week. Engineers usually work on teams that have managers who

report to the CEO of their company to ask for funds and whatnot. Engineers are typically paid

salaries starting at fifty to sixty thousand dollars per year and go up to 120 thousand dollars per

year. Depending on the company, engineers get fifteen to thirty paid vacation days per year. A a

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What about this career is challenging? Well, the whole job is a challenge. Every day,

engineers strive to solve problems. So engineering is entirely facing challenges. Some perks to

the job are things like the self satisfaction of helping people that benefit from what you do in

addition to that of having faced and defeated a challenge. In Utah, it can be pretty easy to get a

job as an engineer, aside from the four years of college. However, in Utah, companies tend to

pay their engineers lower salaries than elsewhere. This could be a in part because of the lower

cost of living. Engineering benefits society by producing things that make communities safer,

hospitals better equipped, etc. a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a

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To conclude, this career is important to society because it creates products that make life

easier and safer. This career would be good for me because I enjoy creating new things and

solving problems.
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Bram, Leon L. Engineering. https://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=e6a4bd5e-19b0-

4e54-a22f-

417d5955ab14%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=funk&AN=

EN043400.

Bram, Leon L. Architecture. web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=e6a4bd5e-19b0-4e54-

a22f-

417d5955ab14%40sessionmgr4010&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=AR13430

0&db=funk.

History.com Staff
http://www.history.com/topics/brooklyn-bridge

http://www.history.com/topics/golden-gate-bridge