Civil Engineering has its own pros and cons. However, personally speaking advantages of civil engineering outweighs the disadvantages of it. However, it may depend upon country as well when compared to other engineering professions. But, in general, civil engineers shall never run out of job or scope.
Pros
Some of the advantages or pros of civil engineering career is that:
- It will always have high demand. As long as human exist, they will need house, roads and other building structures. Apart from that civil engineers are responsible for creating dams to cater the need of energy. Therefore, the need of civil engineer is never going to end in the foreseeable future.
- The work of a civil engineer is seldom routine. Unlike other projects, when you go project to project, you will find different location, challenges and arrangements though you will be using similar concepts. This will constantly feed you with changes to break the routine.
- Civil Engineering is a well respected profession in society. In fact, when many think of an engineer, they either think of mechanical engineer or civil engineer.
- Once again, job is neither typically indoor nor typically outdoor. It generally is mix of both and therefore, breaks the routine as discussed earlier. Unless and until you are purely CAD software designer working from desk, you can expect the job to be quite outgoing as well.
- Civil Engineers are better paid than other disciplines. Their pay is above average compared to other engineering disciplines in USA itself. Also, as you grow higher in hierarchy, you have better income opportunities. You may start your own construction company as well.
Cons
Despite lot of advantages, civil engineering career has few disadvantages as well. Some of the cons of civil engineering career are discussed below:
- As a civil engineer, there is small room for error, be it in construction or in putting together the documents. Since most of the civil structures are hard to rebuild given the cost associated with it, even the small error can be very costly. This can incur huge responsibility and liability upon you.
- Alongside lot of responsibility, you need to meet deadlines and obligations of contract which can be stressful at times.
- Since civil projects are generally of longer duration. Therefore, if you have to work outdoor in remote area, that can be quite monotonous. If you strictly hate working outdoor and prefer desk-job, this may not be for you. However, you can restrict yourself to the job of structural drawings and designs.
- During the slowdown of economy, volume of constructions is also affected. This can affect your career prospect if there is high availability of civil engineers or professionals in your area.
- Unlike service industry, there can be limit on how much you can earn. We can see people getting millionaires of billionaires making an app, or movie stars getting rich overnight with single hit. However, that’s not possible in this profession. However, once you reach a respected level in career and own a construction/consulting company, you can make hefty income as projects with huge amount of money are handled.
Despite all these cons, civil engineering is still a very attractive profession considering all its pros.