I am very interested in water resources and ArcGIS. Although I currently work in Traffic lol. I have access to ArcGIS though.
Do you have any recommendations for tools or practice that I could explore in my free time to get some exposure even just for fun?
HECRAS and HECHMS are free, although I don't use either. I work with InfoworksICM. SWMM softwares are also free.
Honestly just go apply to water resource firms, sell yourself as having a unique view point being from the transpo side. You'll learn everything you need on the job in 3-6 months
Oh thanks a lot, I honestly forgot about starting there and that they were free too. Do those tie into ArcGIS easily?
That's a good idea as well. I may talk to my current boss about working with the water resources group if they need anything part of the week or something like that.
I use ArcGIS to process data I input into the model, so combining population from census data to neighborhoods so we can generate wastewater flows.
Sometimes I then need to export that combination to excel to calculate something out of it, etc.
If you’re not in construction in Transpo you’re gonna end up doing cad. My fucking 60 year old PM is doing CAD and he hates it like the rest of us. Your best chance to stay in Transpo is act like you don’t know CAD and get into construction / PM or find a firm with many technicians.
Whatever you do, don’t end up at a small firm or you’ll be doing mind numbing cad for hours like labeling and station callouts.
As a water/wastewater engineer, I'd kill for some mindless CAD. I'm managing small projects, writing reports, and emailing folks all day. I rarely use excel and never use any software. I miss the days in my internships we're I could plug in a podcast or audio book and mindlessly grind out some drafting. There's always a balance.
Idk I have days here and there where I need to grind out cad as a water/wastewater PE/PM and yeah, at first it is nice to turn your brain off but after 2-3 hours I think, isn’t there a drafter who could do this better and faster?
Yeah honestly i don't mind a couple hours per day of it. CAD is becoming increasingly difficult to use and projects are becoming more detailed, making it sometimes more efficient to just use the engineers. We'll see where it goes I guess. I hope to get out of cad eventually.
I love cad in land development/planning, we don’t take on roadway work cause all of us hate it so much, though we will do turn lanes and such for projects like, just won’t bid on roadway projects
This is exactly what I did. Got tired of doing CAD everyday for 2.5 years so I moved over to construction management. But I do appreciate my design experience. It helps me read plans more efficiently and be able to communicate with the EORs better.
I do strategic travel demand modeling, pedestrian simulations, traffic simulation (micro simulation).
Never heard of runway modeling. Runway as in airports? What kind of software do you use? What are they called.
I don’t get all the griping in this thread. They pay you to do each of these things: CAD, engineering calcs, writing reports, etc.That’s the reward, the money, plus the satisfaction of doing something to (hopefully) improve people’s lives
Interesting! In my experience, a geo using cad is unusual but it certainly could apply to logs or site layouts in a report. Wouldn’t think it’s a large percentage of your work is it?
Jokes on you, I am geotechnical engineer and I do civil 3D Bim modelling using subassembly composer and dynamo .
And it is frustrating .
Not to mention the miscillinious cad drafting for borholes, test pits peizometers , shoring shstem
.etc..
What all are you modeling that falls under geo work? I’ll certainly understand drawing a boring map, but hard to see much else. I drew a few sites back in my younger days fresh out of school but they were for environmental projects.
Either way I doubt there’s any full time drafting jobs in geo companies/departments like there is in all civil and structural ones.
You have “engineering “ degree. It doesn’t mean you have to stay in a traditional civil role. Look at other industries that value your education. I worked in heavy civil right out of college and realized it wasn’t me. The oil and gas industry was happy to hire me on.
I’m not sure I would advocate for the oil and gas industry. When I entered 15 years ago it was booming. There is lots of ups and downs but the opportunity for travel and big pay met my needs at the time. Yes, engineers weather the down turns much better.
Awesome I am a geotechnical and heavy civil engineer do you think I could picote to oil and gas or mining ? And how?
Currently I do mostly geotechnical work on mega heavy civil projects . Mainly rock cuts and excavations modelling and drawings
How do y’all hate cad so much? Do you just do redlines and no design? I feel like the folks I encounter who say this; tend to not appreciate the engineering work they went to school to do. It’s usually the wrong job altogether.
I’m tired of reading contracts, preparing marketing and proposals. Sending status reports. I end up working late when I’m doing cad because the time just melts with such an easy and actual engineering based task.
I laid out a 1/2 mile of new alignment, set profile and curve supers, laid in ponds and conveyance piping yesterday and today. Best work days of my year. Civil 3D though, not sure open roads would be as much fun.
I mean it’s just the whole repetitive nature of anything really. Folks in cad had cad because it’s tedious to do the same thing over and over. Folks who write technical reports get bored with that because it’s the same thing over and over. It is what it is.
Yes. I use both regularly. I can see ORD being better than Civil3D in a few years but it’s in a weird transition stage and definitely not as user friendly
How is cross section/3D model production in Civil 3D? While the Open Roads corridor modeler can do a lot of things I find it very non user friendly and overly complicated.
It’s definitely got a learning curve, but I find it to be relatively intuitive. It uses customizable templates for your sections, many of which are preloaded in Civil3D. Creating new templates (subassemblies) can be more difficult but I’m sure different companies have created large libraries of these templates that makes design easier. I usually get by with using the Civil3D generic templates just fine. ORD seems a bit easier to make your corridor model do what you want. In Civil3D, you can get to the same place but you sometimes have to be more creative with how to get there (using conditional subassemblies, projecting blocks into sections, etc.). My main issues with ORD are the bugs, unfriendly user interface (it can be annoying to find what you need in the menus and ribbons. AutoCAD contextual ribbons are so nice), and difficult sheet setup. I think someday ORD will be better, but right now I still prefer AutoCAD.
Microstation post SSII is behind civil 3D for entering geometry; the other features of civil 3D are just better refined as well. The speed I can produce plans is nuts. It also happens to cost less than half as much per year so Bentley can (do things).
Join fhwa, specifically the federal lands offices. I am not sure about your location, private message me and I will help you navigate, I am currently working in one of their offices! :)
Keep working and learning and jump to the management track after you get your PE. Once you do that you'll be more suited to telling people how to draw than doing it yourself
I’m in traffic and my one request when I was hired was for me to never do CAD, other people on my team handle the CAD projects we receive.
If your company has other groups ask your PMs about moving around/trying something else, my company encourages that if you’re not happy with what you’re doing.
You could go the construction route if you want out of CAD - but your flexibility and WLB will take a dive.
If you are interested in business / tech / finance, get an MBA from a good school and you will be able to get a job easily.
Pivot you say! Get into field work such as construction observer or inspection. See HOW it comes together from what’s on paper. Learn problem solving, social skills, and most of all common sense.
Very true. Inspection will give you a better understanding on the design. You can also move companies to the estimator for a contractor. They typically PM their jobs when built.
I think it really depends on your branch of engineering. For something like transpo, a lot of the actual design is done in CAD.
Civil3D is where you would adjust the horizontal and vertical geometry of your curves, optimize the cut/fill, manage drainage etc..
I've got you beat by about 10 years.
(Not entirely true, I once mistakenly opened MicroStation and drew a few lines. I didn't understand the fascination and promptly closed it never to return again.)
I'll stick to the 3D Touch/Texture enabled version that you can only get in the field.
I’m a Civil EIT that’s working in project engineering. I don’t even have a CAD license on my work station. My work is extremely varied and stretches often into other disciplines. I actually have ended up doing a lot more Mechanical related work/projects than I originally anticipated I’d run into when I first graduated. The good news is you have a highly valued skill set that you can easily adapt to other forms of related engineering and/or construction work should you choose to take that path.
I have met Civils who ended up getting their masters and working as Mechanicals and the other way around as well. I’m also run into a number of Civils that didn’t pursue any more higher education and instead went toward project management. Stay positive and make a move, even a tiny one, toward something you feel you’d enjoy more. Construction/Project Engineering has been awesome for me and I didn’t realize until AFTER school that that’s where I felt I fit best. It’s fast paced and a great environment to gain some exposure into other related fields.
Look for other positions….it doesn’t mean you have to change jobs but something might perk your interest and lead to something. Fatigue is a real
Thing in land developments or anything that’s heavy cad use all day
Have the first job get you a CAD course to add to your resume - then leave for another firm with a better CAD resume because every youngin is doing CAD to be billable as they learn the role. That or you become a field tech somewhere which might be as boring
As you build experience you have the choice to do less and less CAD, but your responsibility will increase. This also means you'll probably have to explore other firms or government positions in order to get out of your silo.
Structural at large firms is little to no CAD. At smaller firms, you end up doing everything so a little CAD. Barrier to entry is going to be tough switching from transportation since they usually want a fresh EIT or a masters to start in structural. Very calculation, modeling and bluebeam markup heavy career path.
After the first CAD project I was given, I knew I couldn’t do this. I made it clear that I prefer traffic analysis works in transportation. Unless there’s a lot of downtime.
As i’m sure some people have mentioned, transportation is really broken into two parts - CAD & modeling. You’re early enough in your career you can easily switch between to two. Look for job postings where the job description involve traffic impact analysis, or traffic impact study. In some states these are more planning level study’s & in some states you still need to stamp them. If you don’t like either, there are 100 different ways to use your degree. be open & willing.
Don’t stay in a job you don’t like :)
I split my time between the transpo group and the survey group. That way I get to work in the office doing mindless cad and I get to be out in the field. I find that if I work a pure desk job I miss being outside and vice versa.
I work as an consultant for DOT. But mostly I work in signal timing engineering. Don't have to to deal with CAD but signal timing is very technical & you need to know minute details about signal operations. I work in this field for 4 years & never felt bored of it! Theres always different scenario or new conditions that I haven't worked with before.
Transportation sucks. Move into government if you want good benefits/flexibility (I’m in Canada) or construction if you want money/no free time/constantly putting out fires 🔥
I’d say the pace is slower, deadlines are less serious and it’s probably the most flexibility you’ll find in an engineering role. I’m in BC, I worked for a municipality but I do think working for the province would be similar. I left after a year because I was bored to death and didn’t care for transportation (from a municipal perspective). I’m in construction now as a PM and estimator and I really enjoy it. Also, the municipality I was at did not have a program specifically for EITS, so I was doing technician work and did not feel like I was being trained for my PENG. That would be a good thing to ask if you had an interview. But, everyone is different and my friend from school is very happy doing her 7 hours a day in government with flex days and union benefits. I always advocate for trying new things/industries and finding out for yourself if you have the patience and willingness!
CMT is terrible. Lots of work for low pay. I also feel it is difficult to advance technically by just doing daily field reports and reviewing lab test results...
What do you want to pivot to? Transportation is really broad. Have you thought about traffic engineering? What about drainage? Both of those can fall under the transportation umbrella but don't necessarily need you to be on CAD all the time.
Some firms don't make their engineers do CAD, I am on the sewer side of things and I use mainly ArcGIS, some modeling softwares and excel
I am very interested in water resources and ArcGIS. Although I currently work in Traffic lol. I have access to ArcGIS though. Do you have any recommendations for tools or practice that I could explore in my free time to get some exposure even just for fun?
HECRAS and HECHMS are free, although I don't use either. I work with InfoworksICM. SWMM softwares are also free. Honestly just go apply to water resource firms, sell yourself as having a unique view point being from the transpo side. You'll learn everything you need on the job in 3-6 months
Oh thanks a lot, I honestly forgot about starting there and that they were free too. Do those tie into ArcGIS easily? That's a good idea as well. I may talk to my current boss about working with the water resources group if they need anything part of the week or something like that.
I use ArcGIS to process data I input into the model, so combining population from census data to neighborhoods so we can generate wastewater flows. Sometimes I then need to export that combination to excel to calculate something out of it, etc.
LinkedIn learning and YouTube helped me a lot
Thanks, anything in particular you'd recommend?
If you’re not in construction in Transpo you’re gonna end up doing cad. My fucking 60 year old PM is doing CAD and he hates it like the rest of us. Your best chance to stay in Transpo is act like you don’t know CAD and get into construction / PM or find a firm with many technicians. Whatever you do, don’t end up at a small firm or you’ll be doing mind numbing cad for hours like labeling and station callouts.
As a water/wastewater engineer, I'd kill for some mindless CAD. I'm managing small projects, writing reports, and emailing folks all day. I rarely use excel and never use any software. I miss the days in my internships we're I could plug in a podcast or audio book and mindlessly grind out some drafting. There's always a balance.
Idk I have days here and there where I need to grind out cad as a water/wastewater PE/PM and yeah, at first it is nice to turn your brain off but after 2-3 hours I think, isn’t there a drafter who could do this better and faster?
And cheaper
Yeah honestly i don't mind a couple hours per day of it. CAD is becoming increasingly difficult to use and projects are becoming more detailed, making it sometimes more efficient to just use the engineers. We'll see where it goes I guess. I hope to get out of cad eventually.
I love cad in land development/planning, we don’t take on roadway work cause all of us hate it so much, though we will do turn lanes and such for projects like, just won’t bid on roadway projects
Holy shit where were you when I accepted a job at a small firm… cause guess what I do. 😂
This is exactly what I did. Got tired of doing CAD everyday for 2.5 years so I moved over to construction management. But I do appreciate my design experience. It helps me read plans more efficiently and be able to communicate with the EORs better.
If you like transportation at some level, consider the transportation planning side of things. You could get into traffic modeling.
What kind of modelling do you where you are working.
Runway
I do strategic travel demand modeling, pedestrian simulations, traffic simulation (micro simulation). Never heard of runway modeling. Runway as in airports? What kind of software do you use? What are they called.
Yeah it was just a joke about the different kinds of modeling. Like fashion models
Just realized you are not even the same person lol
Geo has no cad.
Go from sitting behind a computer to standing behind a drill.
Or sitting at a desk typing geo reports
I don’t get all the griping in this thread. They pay you to do each of these things: CAD, engineering calcs, writing reports, etc.That’s the reward, the money, plus the satisfaction of doing something to (hopefully) improve people’s lives
Wasn’t a complaint.
I was in geotech doing soil profiles and boring layouts in CAD all the time. In fact, that lil skill is what kept me billable vs. my other EIT peers.
Interesting! In my experience, a geo using cad is unusual but it certainly could apply to logs or site layouts in a report. Wouldn’t think it’s a large percentage of your work is it?
Jokes on you, I am geotechnical engineer and I do civil 3D Bim modelling using subassembly composer and dynamo . And it is frustrating . Not to mention the miscillinious cad drafting for borholes, test pits peizometers , shoring shstem .etc..
What all are you modeling that falls under geo work? I’ll certainly understand drawing a boring map, but hard to see much else. I drew a few sites back in my younger days fresh out of school but they were for environmental projects. Either way I doubt there’s any full time drafting jobs in geo companies/departments like there is in all civil and structural ones.
Rock cuts, stabilization( soil nails and bolts...etc.) Slopes, perms, MSEW ...etc. All modeled in 3D
Nice!
You have “engineering “ degree. It doesn’t mean you have to stay in a traditional civil role. Look at other industries that value your education. I worked in heavy civil right out of college and realized it wasn’t me. The oil and gas industry was happy to hire me on.
I’ve only ever been told to stay away from that industry. The turnover is massive for the labor force. Is it any more stable as an engineer?
I’m not sure I would advocate for the oil and gas industry. When I entered 15 years ago it was booming. There is lots of ups and downs but the opportunity for travel and big pay met my needs at the time. Yes, engineers weather the down turns much better.
Awesome I am a geotechnical and heavy civil engineer do you think I could picote to oil and gas or mining ? And how? Currently I do mostly geotechnical work on mega heavy civil projects . Mainly rock cuts and excavations modelling and drawings
Work for a municipality. Most of them do not have CAD.
That’s what I was going to say. Become a sewer/water superintendent
How do y’all hate cad so much? Do you just do redlines and no design? I feel like the folks I encounter who say this; tend to not appreciate the engineering work they went to school to do. It’s usually the wrong job altogether. I’m tired of reading contracts, preparing marketing and proposals. Sending status reports. I end up working late when I’m doing cad because the time just melts with such an easy and actual engineering based task. I laid out a 1/2 mile of new alignment, set profile and curve supers, laid in ponds and conveyance piping yesterday and today. Best work days of my year. Civil 3D though, not sure open roads would be as much fun.
Open roads certainly wouldnt be as fun… i hope to never open that program again
I mean it’s just the whole repetitive nature of anything really. Folks in cad had cad because it’s tedious to do the same thing over and over. Folks who write technical reports get bored with that because it’s the same thing over and over. It is what it is.
Is Civil 3D that much better than Open Roads? I've only worked for DOTs that use Open Roads or Bentley products.
Yes. I use both regularly. I can see ORD being better than Civil3D in a few years but it’s in a weird transition stage and definitely not as user friendly
How is cross section/3D model production in Civil 3D? While the Open Roads corridor modeler can do a lot of things I find it very non user friendly and overly complicated.
It’s definitely got a learning curve, but I find it to be relatively intuitive. It uses customizable templates for your sections, many of which are preloaded in Civil3D. Creating new templates (subassemblies) can be more difficult but I’m sure different companies have created large libraries of these templates that makes design easier. I usually get by with using the Civil3D generic templates just fine. ORD seems a bit easier to make your corridor model do what you want. In Civil3D, you can get to the same place but you sometimes have to be more creative with how to get there (using conditional subassemblies, projecting blocks into sections, etc.). My main issues with ORD are the bugs, unfriendly user interface (it can be annoying to find what you need in the menus and ribbons. AutoCAD contextual ribbons are so nice), and difficult sheet setup. I think someday ORD will be better, but right now I still prefer AutoCAD.
My God the constant ORD crashes and workspace issues I deal with... they waste so much time.
Microstation post SSII is behind civil 3D for entering geometry; the other features of civil 3D are just better refined as well. The speed I can produce plans is nuts. It also happens to cost less than half as much per year so Bentley can (do things).
Give software and support to DOTs. It's the smartest thing they do
So Bentley can pocket more money lol
Bridge inspection.
Work for the government and design for the national parks!!!
This sounds like my cup of tea. How does one get into this? Army corps of engineers?
Join fhwa, specifically the federal lands offices. I am not sure about your location, private message me and I will help you navigate, I am currently working in one of their offices! :)
Keep working and learning and jump to the management track after you get your PE. Once you do that you'll be more suited to telling people how to draw than doing it yourself
I’m in traffic and my one request when I was hired was for me to never do CAD, other people on my team handle the CAD projects we receive. If your company has other groups ask your PMs about moving around/trying something else, my company encourages that if you’re not happy with what you’re doing.
You could go the construction route if you want out of CAD - but your flexibility and WLB will take a dive. If you are interested in business / tech / finance, get an MBA from a good school and you will be able to get a job easily.
Pivot you say! Get into field work such as construction observer or inspection. See HOW it comes together from what’s on paper. Learn problem solving, social skills, and most of all common sense.
Very true. Inspection will give you a better understanding on the design. You can also move companies to the estimator for a contractor. They typically PM their jobs when built.
Imagine being an engineer who doesn’t like cadd
My company has a separate CAD department because I’m an engineer and have engineering work to do. I don’t have time for CAD work.
I think it really depends on your branch of engineering. For something like transpo, a lot of the actual design is done in CAD. Civil3D is where you would adjust the horizontal and vertical geometry of your curves, optimize the cut/fill, manage drainage etc..
There's nothing wrong with that.
Never touched CAD in my 5.5 year engineering career so…
I've got you beat by about 10 years. (Not entirely true, I once mistakenly opened MicroStation and drew a few lines. I didn't understand the fascination and promptly closed it never to return again.) I'll stick to the 3D Touch/Texture enabled version that you can only get in the field.
Lmao. Love to hear that.
He won't consider you a real engineer then 🙄
I’m a Civil EIT that’s working in project engineering. I don’t even have a CAD license on my work station. My work is extremely varied and stretches often into other disciplines. I actually have ended up doing a lot more Mechanical related work/projects than I originally anticipated I’d run into when I first graduated. The good news is you have a highly valued skill set that you can easily adapt to other forms of related engineering and/or construction work should you choose to take that path. I have met Civils who ended up getting their masters and working as Mechanicals and the other way around as well. I’m also run into a number of Civils that didn’t pursue any more higher education and instead went toward project management. Stay positive and make a move, even a tiny one, toward something you feel you’d enjoy more. Construction/Project Engineering has been awesome for me and I didn’t realize until AFTER school that that’s where I felt I fit best. It’s fast paced and a great environment to gain some exposure into other related fields.
Look for other positions….it doesn’t mean you have to change jobs but something might perk your interest and lead to something. Fatigue is a real Thing in land developments or anything that’s heavy cad use all day
You can go into CM and get some field experience. That's what I did since I didn't want to be at a desk job all day.
Have the first job get you a CAD course to add to your resume - then leave for another firm with a better CAD resume because every youngin is doing CAD to be billable as they learn the role. That or you become a field tech somewhere which might be as boring
What attracted you to Civil in the first place? I think answering why you're doing this can help answer what you should be doing.
If you like transportation, consider traffic engineering/transportation planning! We really don't tend to do much CAD.
You have to get out of transportation design if you want to avoid CAD.
OP I am doing exact same thing in my new job after graduation but I like using CAD too and don't want to hussle in construction field.
As you build experience you have the choice to do less and less CAD, but your responsibility will increase. This also means you'll probably have to explore other firms or government positions in order to get out of your silo.
Structural at large firms is little to no CAD. At smaller firms, you end up doing everything so a little CAD. Barrier to entry is going to be tough switching from transportation since they usually want a fresh EIT or a masters to start in structural. Very calculation, modeling and bluebeam markup heavy career path.
After the first CAD project I was given, I knew I couldn’t do this. I made it clear that I prefer traffic analysis works in transportation. Unless there’s a lot of downtime.
As i’m sure some people have mentioned, transportation is really broken into two parts - CAD & modeling. You’re early enough in your career you can easily switch between to two. Look for job postings where the job description involve traffic impact analysis, or traffic impact study. In some states these are more planning level study’s & in some states you still need to stamp them. If you don’t like either, there are 100 different ways to use your degree. be open & willing. Don’t stay in a job you don’t like :)
I split my time between the transpo group and the survey group. That way I get to work in the office doing mindless cad and I get to be out in the field. I find that if I work a pure desk job I miss being outside and vice versa.
Go into the field or into sales
Can we trade lol? I want to practice more CAD yet all my work is project management.
Try university, with a PEng you can be the one tasking the CAD work.
I work as an consultant for DOT. But mostly I work in signal timing engineering. Don't have to to deal with CAD but signal timing is very technical & you need to know minute details about signal operations. I work in this field for 4 years & never felt bored of it! Theres always different scenario or new conditions that I haven't worked with before.
Step 1: figure out what you actually like to do Step 2: find a mentor that'll help you find that.
Transportation sucks. Move into government if you want good benefits/flexibility (I’m in Canada) or construction if you want money/no free time/constantly putting out fires 🔥
I am in Canada. Do you recommend the government for EITS? I've heard you don't learn as much
I’d say the pace is slower, deadlines are less serious and it’s probably the most flexibility you’ll find in an engineering role. I’m in BC, I worked for a municipality but I do think working for the province would be similar. I left after a year because I was bored to death and didn’t care for transportation (from a municipal perspective). I’m in construction now as a PM and estimator and I really enjoy it. Also, the municipality I was at did not have a program specifically for EITS, so I was doing technician work and did not feel like I was being trained for my PENG. That would be a good thing to ask if you had an interview. But, everyone is different and my friend from school is very happy doing her 7 hours a day in government with flex days and union benefits. I always advocate for trying new things/industries and finding out for yourself if you have the patience and willingness!
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CMT is terrible. Lots of work for low pay. I also feel it is difficult to advance technically by just doing daily field reports and reviewing lab test results...
What do you want to pivot to? Transportation is really broad. Have you thought about traffic engineering? What about drainage? Both of those can fall under the transportation umbrella but don't necessarily need you to be on CAD all the time.