Foundation engineer skills for your resume and career

There are basic phenomena that all civil engineers have to understand and fully comprehend. These are the skills that you will learn in detail in books in college or at your training site. But a top-tier civil engineer must not only be acutely familiar with the project objectives but also must be exceptionally aware of the environment in which the building or structure has been or will be placed. As such, one must be cognizant of potential hazards posed by climate or people. There may be expressed concerns or mandates about building in hurricane, tornado or flooding prone areas, but a civil engineer must take into consideration population density, proximity to a high-value person, structure, or historic site (e.g., City Hall, electric company, Liberty Bell, etc.), and potential for mass casualty or extreme damage if attacked by radical elements or rioters. Unfortunately, this is the world that we live in today.

With the shrinking market of design/office work during the pandemic, I see two options for a graduate. One is to go to graduate school, and the other is to work in the field. Graduate education generally transforms a student from a generalist to a specialist, so, choose a study area carefully. In addition to gaining specialized knowledge at graduate school, students may use the time, up to certain limits, to fulfill engineering experience requirements when applying for a Professional Engineer (PE) license. Check each state's professional licensing boards for details. Most students with a BS in civil engineering prefer a design job, but field experience can be supplementary and beneficial to the design work that an engineer will do in the future. Such experiences broaden students' perspectives, and make them better engineers, because they will pay attention to constructability in their designs. A word of caution: stay agile and keep an eye on emerging opportunities. Do not get too comfortable and stay there for too long, unless construction management is your passion.

Civil engineering is a technical discipline that is founded in mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences. Technical skills have always been, and will continue to be, important. The coronavirus pandemic has shown us the importance of professional skills. Civil engineers must be able to communicate effectively, using a range of techniques to a wide variety of audiences.

In my opinion, visualization skills will begin to become very important. I can envision a coupled work environment, having technical analyses and designs working behind the scenes with visualizations being presented to clients. Civil engineers will need to present their work, not using traditional 2D blueprints and plan sets, but using 3D and 4D visualizations, which will include either virtual reality or augmented reality. This is especially important as our designs become more complex, and we continue in-fill development in dense urban areas.

Soft skills are vital in civil engineering, and the ones that are most important at the early stages of people's careers include both written and oral communication. Writing memos and reports, emails, talking to people in the field or on the phone - all of these are incredibly important to civil engineering.