Experiences with Engineering school

.complexGoing to major in Civil Engineering, starting college next year. Wanted to get some insight on the difficulty of the major, amount of work, and overall experience. Obviously leads you to a great job after college.

Not sure if you mean college (university) or community college. Not sure why people in the states use the word college for both.

Anyway, buddy of mine went to university for civil, I went to college for electronics. I can say that no matter what, its a lot of math. However, college level puts more emphasis on the hands on aspect of the trade. Just make sure you apply/are in a program that has an option for CO-Op/ internship. It will pay off, I guarantee you.

Also, take the time to get to know a professor you click with. I became good friends with one of my profs and he took his own personal time to prepare me for a technical exam for a job.

It really depends on the school you go to. If you're going to reputable engineering school then you're going to have to put in alot more work than if you go to a school that's known for its teaching or nursing degrees, for example. As for the difficulty of your major, civil engineering is one of the milder degrees math-wise. It'll still be difficult at times but it's no electrical or chemical engineering.

I'm a 4th year geological engineering student btw.

sneakywhitelegsIt really depends on the school you go to. If you're going to reputable engineering school then you're going to have to put in alot more work than if you go to a school that's known for its teaching or nursing degrees, for example. As for the difficulty of your major, civil engineering is one of the milder degrees math-wise. It'll still be difficult at times but it's no electrical or chemical engineering.

I'm a 4th year geological engineering student btw.

Know this is kind of cliche NSer, but top choice is CU right now, and they have a great engineering program

studied chemical engineering for 4 years (one of those years was a repeat) and all i'll say is if you're not enjoying it its gonna fall apart pretty quickly.

if you got in, you'll have the ability to do the majority of the work if you put your mind to it, but if you're not motivated it's gonna suck. there will be parts that you hate, and everyone else will hate too, but if you stay motivated and keep at it you'll be fine.

You will hate your life most of the time, and then you will probably get a job that pays you lot's of money, too much money to quit, even though you don't really like it, then you will drive 5 hours to ski on weekends, and get 10 days in a year, and start to get lazy, and vacation in mexico and then get fat, and then die.

Mechanical Engineering student here, in my 5th (double degree with International Studies). You really need to love it, and if you do, then stick with it. I hated a lot of my earlier classes. I found them boring (and of course difficult). I nearly dropped engineering. Then I got to the upper level classes. They are more rigorous academically, but the subject matter is more interesting (to me) so it is easier for me to do well. My school has an intro class for all freshmen engineers that gives a taste of each discipline. If your school doesn't offer this, talk to older friends or parents friends and see if you can shadow for a day. Don't get too caught up on not understanding the technicalities, that is what school is for. Just ask yourself if you find the work interesting. If everywhere was offering you the same pay, would you choose this job? Do you see yourself at that company (or similar) and do you think you would be happy doing that? If you are just doing it for money (not saying you are), you are better off doing something that makes you happy. It will be hard to finish school and even harder to have a successful career if you don't have a passion for what you do.

Mechanical Engineering student here, in my 5th (double degree with International Studies). You really need to love it, and if you do, then stick with it. I hated a lot of my earlier classes. I found them boring (and of course difficult). I nearly dropped engineering. Then I got to the upper level classes. They are more rigorous academically, but the subject matter is more interesting (to me) so it is easier for me to do well. My school has an intro class for all freshmen engineers that gives a taste of each discipline. If your school doesn't offer this, talk to older friends or parents friends and see if you can shadow for a day. Don't get too caught up on not understanding the technicalities, that is what school is for. Just ask yourself if you find the work interesting. If everywhere was offering you the same pay, would you choose this job? Do you see yourself at that company (or similar) and do you think you would be happy doing that? If you are just doing it for money (not saying you are), you are better off doing something that makes you happy. It will be hard to finish school and even harder to have a successful career if you don't have a passion for what you do.

Civil doesn't pay overly well FYI. Do civil because you love it, or because you can get a job wherever and whenever you want pretty much, and because you'll never be poor.

BUT you aren't gonna get rich or wealthy. you'll have to own the firm if you want to get rich off civil.


For me, school was super, super tough because I'm not naturally good at it, and because I had to keep a high GPA to keep scholarships. It depends on the person though.

I am a high school junior. I have lots of time to decide and pick a college and everything but I am looking into Environmental Engineering. Can anyone tell me what that's like and how hard it is. I don't particularly like math, but I don't hate it. I am good at math but not great I am currently in pre-Calc. Hope that gives you a scale of what I would call hard

I studied ChemE for four years, and now I'm a second year Ph.D student in a different area of engineering.

I think I might be an example of someone who didn't "love it" but did it anyway. The material was interesting, but I wouldn't go so far to say that it appealed to me any more than other disciplines. What I did like (and still do) is the challenge. For the most part, just solving any hard problem is fulfilling for me. I think the reason that it worked for me was because I've always been pretty good at "school." I understand how school works and am willing to play into the system. I didn't have to love the discipline directly to be motivated to be good at it, I just liked being good at something difficult.

Looking back, it doesn't feel like I worked very hard. I certainly did my fair share of partying (I was drinking 4 days a week freshman year). I also skipped school occasionally to go skiing on days where I only had one class (because if I skied during the week, I could drink with my predominantly non-skier friends on the weekends!). But on the flip side, I also worked hard: I did every single problem in my organic chemistry books. I spent countless hours and many late nights working on my design projects. I graduated with a bunch of honors. I'm sure that my definition of that "hard work" and my perception of what I've done are skewed by time (and by the type of person I am), but regardless, in hindsight it doesn't seem so bad.

If you're the type who is willing to work hard and gets a kick out of overcoming challenges, then you'll do fine in engineering. You can still play hard too, but you'll just have to be willing to get up the next morning (or afternoon, let's be honest) and get some work done.

36ChambersOfWuI am a high school junior. I have lots of time to decide and pick a college and everything but I am looking into Environmental Engineering. Can anyone tell me what that's like and how hard it is. I don't particularly like math, but I don't hate it. I am good at math but not great I am currently in pre-Calc. Hope that gives you a scale of what I would call hard

Of all of my standardized testing areas (math, critical reading, writing), math is my worst. I'm not 'bad' at math, but it does not click for me the same way that it does for many.

Make sure you know what environmental engineering is before you do it. My girlfriend started out as environmental engineering, perhaps naively expecting to be wiping oil off shorebirds and saving the penguins. Sure, EnvE isn't as intense as some of the other engineering disciplines, but there's math involved.

To reiterate, though - if you like challenge and you're willing to work hard, engineering will lead you to a fulfilling career, most likely working on something pretty cool. People will tell you it will be hard. Don't let that deter you. Instead, take pride in that. It's not a bad thing to allow the fact that your chosen discipline is difficult to reinforce your ego a little bit, so long as you don't become one of those annoying soapbox engineering students (you all know what I mean). That fortification of self will allow you to persevere through the difficulty, and you'll be proud of your achievements when you're done.

I graduated with a Mechanical engineering degree. Looking back it doesnt seem like i put a ton of effort into it. The college I went to was supposed to be pretty decent for it, but I thought the program was kind of a joke, a lot of kids passing classes that I don't think they really deserved to. Graduated with a good GPA got an alright job that I enjoy for the most part.

Biggest piece of advice is to get internships you will learn more from them than from any class.

Im studying ChemE right now at Boulder and would say its definitely more challenging than arts and science or business majors but not insanely hard. I still go out every weekend and will likely ski most weekends but I'm not drinking on weekdays or skipping class to shred like most of my roommates. One thing you can consider is finishing in 4 and 1/2 or 5 years and you'll have more manageable workloads and more time to ski, that also comes with more loans and debt too though..

mirozOf all of my standardized testing areas (math, critical reading, writing), math is my worst. I'm not 'bad' at math, but it does not click for me the same way that it does for many.

Make sure you know what environmental engineering is before you do it. My girlfriend started out as environmental engineering, perhaps naively expecting to be wiping oil off shorebirds and saving the penguins. Sure, EnvE isn't as intense as some of the other engineering disciplines, but there's math involved.

To reiterate, though - if you like challenge and you're willing to work hard, engineering will lead you to a fulfilling career, most likely working on something pretty cool. People will tell you it will be hard. Don't let that deter you. Instead, take pride in that. It's not a bad thing to allow the fact that your chosen discipline is difficult to reinforce your ego a little bit, so long as you don't become one of those annoying soapbox engineering students (you all know what I mean). That fortification of self will allow you to persevere through the difficulty, and you'll be proud of your achievements when you're done.

You said to make sure I knew what EnvE is. So I ask you, what exactly is EnvE? Is it finding a new way to make windmills more efficient and making a gas replacement that is good for the environment or is it something else?

36ChambersOfWuYou said to make sure I knew what EnvE is. So I ask you, what exactly is EnvE? Is it finding a new way to make windmills more efficient and making a gas replacement that is good for the environment or is it something else?

To be honest, I'm not totally sure, but I doubt it's those things. Improving efficiencies sounds like a mechanical/electrical engineering problem, and creating a gas replacement is certainly chemistry (not engineering, although the development of production capability to produce that gas replacement would be chemical engineering). Is that the kind of stuff you're interested in?

I think environmental engineers could work in those fields, but not as you described them. I think an environmental engineer would be more likely to study how an array of wind turbines affects the local environment, or how the environmental effects of that new gas replacement
compare to existing fuels. Do you see that difference?

Some other areas of environmental engineering that I can think of are:
- measuring/simulating how pharmaceutical chemicals and nanoparticles get into the water and affected downstream environments.
- Soil chemistry/subsurface flows/geochemical engineering
- Almost any modeling/simulation that has to do contaminant transport and pollution remediation
- Waste/air pollution solutions and systems; measurements and modeling

Again, I'm not EnvE, so I'm not totally sure, but this is the kind of stuff you might expect to see.

The nice thing about engineering is that it's easy to hop around to other engineering disciplines early in your college career. Almost all curricula require basic chemistry, calculus, and physics, and with that background you can start as EnvE and easily switch to MechE or ChemE or EE, etc within your first 1-2 years.

An engineering degree is also what you make it. Just because some idiot on NS who has no experience in EnvE said that environmental engineers don't do certain things, doesn't mean they can't ever. Things aren't that black and white. Sure, in school you'll learn technical principles relevant to your specific field, but if you're thoughtful about your education you'll realize that you're learning the skills required to parse and solve technical problems in general. If you're good, you can use that to your advantage to broaden your options.

mirozTo be honest, I'm not totally sure, but I doubt it's those things. Improving efficiencies sounds like a mechanical/electrical engineering problem, and creating a gas replacement is certainly chemistry (not engineering, although the development of production capability to produce that gas replacement would be chemical engineering). Is that the kind of stuff you're interested in?

I think environmental engineers could work in those fields, but not as you described them. I think an environmental engineer would be more likely to study how an array of wind turbines affects the local environment, or how the environmental effects of that new gas replacement
compare to existing fuels. Do you see that difference?

Some other areas of environmental engineering that I can think of are:
- measuring/simulating how pharmaceutical chemicals and nanoparticles get into the water and affected downstream environments.
- Soil chemistry/subsurface flows/geochemical engineering
- Almost any modeling/simulation that has to do contaminant transport and pollution remediation
- Waste/air pollution solutions and systems; measurements and modeling

Again, I'm not EnvE, so I'm not totally sure, but this is the kind of stuff you might expect to see.

The nice thing about engineering is that it's easy to hop around to other engineering disciplines early in your college career. Almost all curricula require basic chemistry, calculus, and physics, and with that background you can start as EnvE and easily switch to MechE or ChemE or EE, etc within your first 1-2 years.

An engineering degree is also what you make it. Just because some idiot on NS who has no experience in EnvE said that environmental engineers don't do certain things, doesn't mean they can't ever. Things aren't that black and white. Sure, in school you'll learn technical principles relevant to your specific field, but if you're thoughtful about your education you'll realize that you're learning the skills required to parse and solve technical problems in general. If you're good, you can use that to your advantage to broaden your options.

Thanks, I don't really know what I want yet but thanks for the input.

36ChambersOfWuYou said to make sure I knew what EnvE is. So I ask you, what exactly is EnvE? Is it finding a new way to make windmills more efficient and making a gas replacement that is good for the environment or is it something else?

everyone who goes to college for a specific major(especially in STEM) thinks that what they will be doing is the super cool, cutting edge stuff you see in documentaries.

In reality you will likely be doing a non-sexy, very dry, fairly repetitive job that is only very far removed from actually changing the world. thats life. Make sure you like the micro aspects of the field and arent basing your like/dislike on the big overarching idea.

36ChambersOfWuYou said to make sure I knew what EnvE is. So I ask you, what exactly is EnvE? Is it finding a new way to make windmills more efficient and making a gas replacement that is good for the environment or is it something else?

i'm a transfer student at UNR in environmental engineering. here, it is basically a branch of civil engineering. the emphasis moves slightly away from infrastructure and more towards chem, bio, and hydrology. however im sure it varies slightly depending on what university you attend.

for me, the load has pretty much been a 9-5 day job. i basically spend most my day on campus in class, doing homework, or wrapping up loose ends (studying for tests, finishing projects).

a couple things to note... get good at math now. the foundation you build in algebra and trig will either save or sink you in calc, physics, and beyond. everything youre doing now will come up again. again, env eng is branch of civil. you'll be studying things like water treatment, storm water capturing, managing stream restorations. primarily things you would consider infrastructure. the things you mentioned are energy based and studying chem, chem eng, or electrical eng would more likely facilitate working in that area.

agnarskii'm a transfer student at UNR in environmental engineering. here, it is basically a branch of civil engineering. the emphasis moves slightly away from infrastructure and more towards chem, bio, and hydrology. however im sure it varies slightly depending on what university you attend.

for me, the load has pretty much been a 9-5 day job. i basically spend most my day on campus in class, doing homework, or wrapping up loose ends (studying for tests, finishing projects).

a couple things to note... get good at math now. the foundation you build in algebra and trig will either save or sink you in calc, physics, and beyond. everything youre doing now will come up again. again, env eng is branch of civil. you'll be studying things like water treatment, storm water capturing, managing stream restorations. primarily things you would consider infrastructure. the things you mentioned are energy based and studying chem, chem eng, or electrical eng would more likely facilitate working in that area.

Thanks. If environmental engineering is a 5 out of 10 on the hardness scale where is chemical engineering?

36ChambersOfWuThanks. If environmental engineering is a 5 out of 10 on the hardness scale where is chemical engineering?

i would guess 7 or 8 probably closer to 8. its hard to say seeing that i haven't even finished either obviously. im having a pretty easy time so far with env though. the calculus i took in community college was honestly the most rigorous coursework ive had. thats instructor dependent though.

i will say if i could redo the last year, i would very strongly consider going for chemical eng or chemistry instead. almost definitely

36ChambersOfWuYou said to make sure I knew what EnvE is. So I ask you, what exactly is EnvE? Is it finding a new way to make windmills more efficient and making a gas replacement that is good for the environment or is it something else?

My dad teaches EnvE and his focus is mostly on water treatment for oil and gas but he used to do a lot of research on municipal water treatment, at most universities environmental is centered around waste treatment and pollution control processes. Windmill efficiency would be a more mechanical engineering application while coming up with new fuels can be a environmental/chemical engineering hybrid. In terms of difficulty at specifically CU, Aerospace is the hardest at a 10 while biological/chemical and electrical are probably around an 8.5 with mechanical at an 8. Environmental/Civil (which is a branch of civil at many schools) is around a 6.

agnarskii would guess 7 or 8 probably closer to 8. its hard to say seeing that i haven't even finished either obviously. im having a pretty easy time so far with env though. the calculus i took in community college was honestly the most rigorous coursework ive had. thats instructor dependent though.

i will say if i could redo the last year, i would very strongly consider going for chemical eng or chemistry instead. almost definitely

.Duncan.My dad teaches EnvE and his focus is mostly on water treatment for oil and gas but he used to do a lot of research on municipal water treatment, at most universities environmental is centered around waste treatment and pollution control processes. Windmill efficiency would be a more mechanical engineering application while coming up with new fuels can be a environmental/chemical engineering hybrid. In terms of difficulty at specifically CU, Aerospace is the hardest at a 10 while biological/chemical and electrical are probably around an 8.5 with mechanical at an 8. Environmental/Civil (which is a branch of civil at many schools) is around a 6.

Thanks I think that helps a lot

I also study Chemical at CU. It's definitely a lot of work and came as a shock after not having to work hard even for AP classes in high school, but once you get into the right work habits its doable. I've realized I still have time to ski, climb, and party but I can't spend as much time as my business roommates watching tv or playing video games during the week, which honestly is ok with me.

Sup guys. I'm a junior at CU studying environmental engineering.

I think environmental engineering is a fairly broad term. At CU the 3 main options to study are: water treatment/resources, air quality, and env. remediation. There is also an applied ecology option and chemical processing option, which you probably wouldn't associate with env. engineering.

To OP, any engineering discipline is going to be difficult and require a lot of work. Yes aerospace or chemical might be generally more challenging than env. or civil, but all disciplines are hard compared to business, arts & sciences, etc. For the majority of students, the transition from high school to college is the hardest part (versus sophomore year to junior year etc.). Personally, I did not like my classes freshman year (with a few exceptions) and I felt overwhelmed frequently. Now I enjoy my classes much more, even though they are harder, and I think this is the case with most engineering students. I have taken a mix of civil, mechanical, and chemical classes and I have liked the civil classes the most.

Now I'm assuming you're looking at CU for skiing because there are obviously a ton of quality engineering schools across the country. So let me give you my skiing-engineering experience. Freshman year you will most likely be limited to skiing on weekends, that's just how (most) schedules work out. And I honestly think that's for the best freshman year. You gain more flexibility sophomore and junior year, and senior year seems pretty restrictive. You still have to plan your schedule very well to be able to take days off. A word of warning: It is usually very difficult commuting to mountains. The drive to summit county is already 90 minutes (minimum), with severe weekend traffic, it can take anywhere from 2-6 hours to travel from the hill to Boulder or vice versa. Please take this into consideration.


Best of luck to you wherever you end up! Hit me up if you have any questions.

Hahahaha first year into mechanical engineering and this literally killed me. Prepare for ass-loads of calculus

ChrisMNHahahaha first year into mechanical engineering and this literally killed me. Prepare for ass-loads of calculus

you mean one calculus class per semester?...

ChrisMNHahahaha first year into mechanical engineering and this literally killed me. Prepare for ass-loads of calculus

if first year killed you, you will vaporize in the latter years

1st year is piss people

dodgeif first year killed you, you will vaporize in the latter years

1st year is piss people

True, but most of the first-year struggle is getting used to the work load. Once you accept that you have to do homework and study you don't really perceive the years after to be "harder" per se. The classes do get harder but if you've acclimated right they won't seem too bad.

TheBigAppleYou will hate your life most of the time, and then you will probably get a job that pays you lot's of money, too much money to quit, even though you don't really like it, then you will drive 5 hours to ski on weekends, and get 10 days in a year, and start to get lazy, and vacation in mexico and then get fat, and then die.

all too real

My program is 90% water. Watershed, quality, analysis, resources, risk, dynamics, systems, coastal. There are other resources applications, but it's mostly just water. Then there are municipal services, like waste management and waste water treatment, which isn't limited to civil. Then there are service/consulting areas: petrochemical remediation, air pollution, chemical service, water resources, design work, field engineering. Especially with the recent fracking push, lots of jobs are out in the middle of nowhere, but there are also a bunch of firms based out of pretty cool towns, like San Francisco and a bunch of ski towns. It's fairly easy for me to find a job in a place I would go to, if I wanted to do engineering (my view is shifting at the end here). If you end up doing it and are starting to look at a sub 3.0 GPA, it's going to be tough to get an internship and you should consider moving to an easier major.

My informed opinions of other majors:

CS: Probably would have done this due to its breadth if I could start over. And it's easier at my school, but regarded higher in the public eye. Did you know Qualtrics was recently valued at $1 Billion? Started out of a basement in Provo.
Biological: Lab jobs, biogas, medical, pharmaceuticals. Harder than Env. Eng.
Civil: Everything an environmental engineer does, plus concrete and structures. Structural engineering is tough and stressful, but rewarding and pretty cool. Probably a little easier than most engineering majors, but harder than environmental engineering.
Geological: Find oil, look at rocks and minerals, find oil, earthquakes, find oil. Harder than Env. Eng.
ChemE: Pharmaceutical/petrochemicals industry, or research. Harder than the above.
MechE: Possibly hardest to get a job from, but pretty cool from a traditional engineering perspective. Work on cars, planes, etc. Middle for difficulty.
Aerospace: I don't know much but I've heard it's a (significantly) harder MechE.
ECE: CS kids who care less about money and more about doing cool things with electricity. Very interesting tech applications for the stuff you can learn in a good program. Harder than CS.
Materials Science/Engineering Physics: The hardest majors at my school, really cool though. You need to be the best in the distribution classes to really get into this. Superconductors and solar panels. They love physics.

Source: Environmental engineering senior at a top 10 program.

bighomieflockI also study Chemical at CU. It's definitely a lot of work and came as a shock after not having to work hard even for AP classes in high school, but once you get into the right work habits its doable. I've realized I still have time to ski, climb, and party but I can't spend as much time as my business roommates watching tv or playing video games during the week, which honestly is ok with me.

This is basically the best explanation of how hard ChemE is in terms of high school and other majors. What makes it hard is the work load and finding the time to get it done. The subject matter isn't anything wildly new and builds so nothing is ever a surprise or too difficult. Im at OSU and in the honors program.

dodgeif first year killed you, you will vaporize in the latter years

1st year is piss people

I meant that the post killed me. i love engineering and calculus, but there's just something about bitching about it that compensates for how shitty it is.

Idk i have a civil engineering job and i never took a single engineering related class

.Hugo.Idk i have a civil engineering job and i never took a single engineering related class

... but youll never be a civil engineer :(

californiagrown... but youll never be a civil engineer :(

i know and im ok with that

ChemE 3rd year

Make friends on your course, this is what will get you through the degree. You'll go to more of your classes and generally have better awareness of what is going on. Also you have to secretly enjoy at least some of the work, even if you're complaining about it to your arts major friends about how much you hate it.

It's not that terrible, mine was worse than average because my Under grad required all students (even English majors) to take base level Aero Eng., Astro Eng., Comp Sci, Chem, Calc, and more. So on top of regular Civil Engineering classes, I had to study for my astronautical engineering exam at the same time. Hard to do since it's obviously not what you're interested in...otherwise you'd be an astro major.

I don't use that degree, but it was a good backup and I'm confident I can succeed in just about any masters program I want considering everything I took in my undergrad....but I don't want a masters.....but I'll likely get one in a few years to keep options open later.