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what do civil engineers actually do?

do they sit in a workshop all day or go to the construction sites?
also are there a lot of women in civil engineering?
There are a lot of different branches of civil eng. There are construction engineers and managers (technically not an engineering role but often civEs go into it after uni) who will work with contractors on site more often than others. Structural engineers may come onto construction sites from time to time, but a lot of their work is modelling on MATLAB etc.

Geotechnical engineers will much more likely be involved in the early stages of a construction contract, evaluating the soil mechanics etc of the location and surveying with the contractors.

But there are other, less well known areas; traffic engineers and designers are principally drawn from civil engineers (the main civil engineering training school in france is actually known as the school of roads and bridges). Environmental engineers will carry out ecological surveys on potential building sites, or monitor for example microbial levels in water systems (e.g. agricultural but also drinking water).

Also vibration engineering and aspects of hydrology often come under civil engineering, although this is more academic/office based (and also shared with other engineering disciplines).

Women are generally underrepresented in engineering. Civil engineering is one of the largest (and broadest, as illustrated above) branches of engineering though so you're more likely to see more women across many different workplaces than in a more niche area.
Original post by yassaman
do they sit in a workshop all day or go to the construction sites?
also are there a lot of women in civil engineering?


Civil engineering is primarily concerned with buildings and infrastructure. Civil and structural engineering often go together at undergrad. From what I have seen, civil engineers will generally either work for a consultant or a contractor; consultants primarily perform the design work (e.g. design buildings, bridges, etc.) and contractors build the designs. Consultancy is generally office based, whereas contractors can spend a lot more time onsite.

At the moment there generally isn't that many women in engineering; however, civil is better than some other disciplines with regards to gender balance. I wouldn't let there not being much women in it put you off, though.
Reply 3
Original post by yassaman
also are there a lot of women in civil engineering?


Most engineering disciplines are fairly male dominated but it's changing and civil has more females than many disciplines.

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/june-2015-online/bucking-the-trend-why-the-civil-sector-has-more-female-engineers/

And women like Roma are helping lead the way:
https://twitter.com/RomaTheEngineer?s=09

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