Civil Engineering

Growing up as a kid, I loved playing ‘The Sims’. I remember waking up super early on the weekends and spending hours creating my dream homes. To me, that was the main concept of the game. I wasn’t really interested in controlling my little computer human as much as I was interested in populating Sim City with my beautiful homes. One day, my dad, a concrete contractor, brought home a pad of grid paper. A little light bulb sparked in my head… What if I could draw the floor plans of my houses on paper and perfect them with pencil and eraser, and then transfer that concept into my game? It was brilliant. Suddenly, sketches of houses started appearing all over my house (my real one). Production reached an all-time high and it was great. This is probably where the young engineer in me sparked.   

Real talk though. In high school, I really didn’t have a clue what was going to happen after graduation. I was a kid. I knew college was something I was going to do because “everyone does it after they graduate.” Basically I think I was put into civil engineering because my parents thought it was what I was supposed to do. That’s cool. I went with it. Fast forward past freshman year… Guess what? I was digging my Statics and Drafting courses. Wow… I went from being a World of Warcraft addict to digging Calculus. Who would have known? Honestly I think that is why I am pursuing civil engineering. I was just sort of placed here. And I liked it. Without a clue of what I was getting into, I jumped into something and well… I didn’t hate it. I sort of appreciated every aspect of it. It really all started with me liking the classes I was taking. I actually liked the homework assignments (what in the world right?).

Anyways. I thought I knew what was civil engineering was until I jumped into my internship position at Baird, Hampton & Brown. I’ll never forget my first day as an intern. KB, boy did you throw me into the deep end. My boss threw words at me that I’d never heard before. “Underground utilities” and “Plats”… What in the world?  Anyways. My first day of being an intern made me not want to be an intern. I was so lost. I didn’t even know how to send stuff to the printer. No joke though... I love the company I am interning for. Great people with great stories and super experience. DH, you always crack me up with your stories. Interning has shown me a great deal of what civil engineering is about… Hard work and team work is what moves the planet forward. I never thought that so much thought and effort was put into designing a single roadway. But yeah. A lot of thought and effort is put into designing a single roadway. GC you know all about that.  

I think the cool thing about civil engineering is that it is so under appreciated. How many people actually think about how their roadways got there? Or how their house was designed? I sure didn’t think about any of that until I started studying/interning. Now every time I see a curb inlet I freak out and wonder what the discharge is in that thing during the hundred year storm. Civil engineering is actually kind of cool because whatever we design (as civil engineers) stays there for a really long time… and a lot of people use whatever it is we designed. The things that civil engineers design are things that are so…. ordinary. We don’t really take time to appreciate our surroundings because we see it all the time; but our built environment is actually very complex and well planned. Moving forward into a civil engineering career, I would want to have a complex job. One of those jobs that people don’t really know exist. In order to have a job title with like eight words in it, I want to continue my education past a bachelor’s degree. It is nice to know that I can actually impact society. Even if it is something as ordinary as a two-lane roadway… that will be a two-lane roadway that probably thousands of people will use in its lifetime (maybe hopefully a million, but I have always  been an optimist).  

Anyways. I told myself I wouldn’t write walls of text for my blog. But I guess I really got into this one. Civil engineering is cool. Sometimes monotonous; but nevertheless important and absolutely impactful. I think that, under the right guidance, I can really have an impact on society; and that is something I look forward to. Civil engineering is also pretty neat because I am allowed the opportunity to work here: