Junior year has really taught me what a civil engineer is and more about the they work they do, since I now have the foundation of knowledge necessary built up through my basic classes freshman and sophomore year. My building science class this semester has been especially helpful as we are combining the knowledge from statics, dynamics, theory of structures, structural design, and steel design, plus our computer graphics courses to design an actual house from beginning to end. I wrote about civil engineering last year and how I liked my major up to that point, check out that blog here.
This year, I’m taking more classes on structures and materials – steel, theory of structures, and fluid mechanics, in addition to my building science class. Last year, our building science course was based more on architectural design (read about those projects here), while this year we are working more on design specifications and calculations, in addition to the architectural aspect. You can read more about my semester here, and more about my building science class here. We even took a class field trip to a local construction job site, where our professor gave us a tour and pointed out the various structural components we had recently designed in our midterm project (read about that trip here).
I’m so excited that I’ve already registered for my next semester of civil engineering, where I’ll be taking theory of structures II, reinforced concrete design, geotechnical engineering, building science, and sustainability in construction and design. The last course is an elective course, and is essentially a LEED certification course. Since I am looking to pursue a Masters degree in Green Technologies I thought this course would be useful and interesting.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions about Civil Engineering! I’d love to help.
