Five Reasons All Civil Engineers Should Gain Field Experience
Anthony Fasano, PE, F. ASCE
Consultant on Engineering Firm Growth, TEDx Speaker, Trainer & Executive Coach for Engineers, Professional Engineer, ASCE Blogger, Certified Virtual Presenter
I recently published an episode of The Civil Engineering Podcast related to field experience, which I received a lot of good feedback on, so I thought I would share the content here. You can watch the episode here or listen to it here.
I started out my career as a civil engineer as a summer intern for a small civil engineering company. They told me to go out in the field with the "Party Chief" and hold this "Rod." Well I didn't know what that meant, but I wasn't crazy about it. All I knew was that it was hot out, I was walking through sticker bushes all day, and getting poison ivy constantly. Not fun, and certainly not what I envisioned when I decided to pursue civil engineering.
Fast forward twenty years later and that field experience as a surveyor was critical in helping me to become a good civil engineer.
In reflecting on the experience recently, I came up with five specific reasons I believe that experience was helpful.
Here Are the Reasons Why I Think All Civil Engineers Should Gain Field Experience...Please Share Your Thoughts or Additional Reasons at the Bottom of This Post...
1. Field Experience Helps You to Be a Practical Engineer
As I mentioned, I started out in high school doing land surveying (see photo above) over the summers and it really changed my career. Because of my field experience, I was able to make my designs more practical and create better details for the contractors who had to construct the projects I worked on, because I had seen the construction before.
2. Field Experience Allows You to Start with the End in Mind so You Don’t Just Start with the Design First
A lot of civil engineers start designing projects immediately, without seeing the project sites, however the problem with this is if you didn’t see the site, there may be a condition out there that you are not aware of. When you are forced to think in reverse, based on seeing projects built before, you start to do your design work with those construction issues in mind, which forces you to think with the end in mind first. This is very beneficial in reducing issues that may arise during construction because of poor or unclear design documents.
3. Field Experience Forces You to Interact with People
Civil Engineering, to me, is about people. We work on project teams, we work with architects, contractors, developers, real estate agents and other engineers constantly. If you, as a civil engineering professional, are not focused on improving your people skills, you are going to battle to be a great civil engineer for your entire career. My last LinkedIn article explains this in more detail.
4. You Get to Know the Industry and Construction Lingo
Field experience helps you to learn how to talk to other civil engineering professionals and contractors effectively. It improves your overall confidence as an engineer and can make you stand out from the crowd.
5. Once You Get Promoted and Move up in Your Career, Your Chances of Gaining Field Experience Diminish Greatly
Civil engineering managers typically send younger engineers into the field to do inspections, reports, etc. While you are young and you have the chance, you should grab the opportunity with both hands as this will have an incredibly positive impact on your engineering career. These field opportunities won't last forever. Before you know, you will have a pile of invoices on your desk that need get done before anything else.
These are my thoughts on why all civil engineering professionals should gain field experience as early on in their career as possible. I'd like to hear yours.
Please leave a comment below with thoughts on this topic as I think it's an important one.
Thank you.
Anthony Fasano, PE -- Engineering Management Institute
afasano@engineeringmanagementinstitute.org | 201-857-2384
Office Engineer at Balfour Beatty US | Project Planning, Contract Management
8moBut then the issue is when you have spent so much time out on the field (in my case 8 years), it feels like I’m not doing civil engineering anymore. I’ve been struggling with trying to get my PE license with the state of California after passing their 8-hours test because according to them, the experience that I’m presenting is not considered civil engineering. It’s a frustrating moment in my career, because I feel like I’m getting stuck as a field guy.
Client Services Manager at RJN Group, Inc.
5yI absolutely agree with Anthony and extend this to apply to all Engineers . The best time to get field experience starts during an Intern period and extends through first few years of full time employment . There is so much to be learned while in the field and the examples Anthony presents are right on . As a Practicing Professional Engineer during my career as a Civil / Environmental Engineer I always almost demanded that a Project Engineer spend time in the field walking the site of the project and neighborhood and in the case of pipeline projects , walk the route . Take photos and observe features . Work along side the survey team . For Environmental Engineers , I recommend that they participate in actual sample collection as humbling as that may seem . All field experience builds the Engineers character and understanding of empathy .
Masters project management at Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University
5yI agree 100% with this, my Dad who is a Civil Engineer,MSc. Structures for 58years, use to ask me who is a better engineer?, the guy with a tie claiming to be an engineer or the guy who does not mind getting out there with his sleeves rolled up and getting dirty with the field guys he does not need you in his company. In the Navy, we do that at Naval Mobile Construction Battalion, with a new Ensign, coming out of Naval Academy, goes to the field with the survey crew and Material testing technician to slump concrete and carries around a pair of boots filled with concrete for a few weeks that tells you he is a new guy on board and 90% turn out to be good leaders, because he has been there and done it. I also think schools should also start enforcing industrial Attachment, where after your second year, you start spending summer with construction companies till you graduate, University of Houston started it fall 1980 and you can catch a class or two in the evening. University of Texas has thesame program, enough time for you to experience what you are getting into and to know if you cut out for it. Thank you
Transportation Principal Engineer - Construction at CT Department of Transportatio
5yTRUTH
Environmental Scientist / Environmental Construction Compliance Inspector
5yField experience should be required. How can you design structures if you have no real world experience of how it fits together in the real world and the constructability? Then you have inspections so you know what features are subject to early failure.