Civil Engineering Nashville, TN

The job of an engineer is one that yields great importance and necessity. Due to this, engineering is a career that is broken up into a variety of fields. For example, there’s electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, chemical engineering, and so much more! Additionally, there’s the field of civil engineering, which plays an extremely important part in the development of our society. As one of the oldest branches of engineering, civil engineering specifically focuses on the design, construction, and maintenance of the public works system–it’s what truly defines modern civilization. From buildings to bridges and everything in between, civil engineering is a discipline of engineering that has many different facets.

Here are the few of the many things a civil engineer may work on:

  • Transportation systems
    • Bridges
    • Roads
    • Ports
  • Wastewater and Freshwater Systems
    • Freshwater delivery
    • Sewage plants
    • Flood protection
  • Construction and Design
    • Land surveys
    • Office buildings
    • Power plants

As you can see, not only is a civil engineer’s job expansive, but it’s also multi-dimensional. Due to its broad nature, civil engineering even has quite a few sub-divisions of engineering that a civil engineer can specialize in. Let’s take a look at a few examples of the different branches that are included under the umbrella of civil engineering:

  • Construction Engineering: Construction engineering is a subdivision of civil engineering that consists of ample planning, construction, and thorough maintenance of commercial edifices. Typically, construction engineers will supervise construction site work, overseeing projects from start to end.
  • Structural Engineering: Just as it sounds, structural engineering entails the design and analysis of buildings and structures. A job of a structural engineer is to carefully analyze and design different structures that promote safety and can successfully withstand high levels of stress and forces–i.e natural disasters, trucks with heavy loads.
  • Transportation Engineering: Another branch of civil engineering is transportation engineering. Transportation engineering deals with planning, constructing, and managing a variety of transportation facilities. In transportation engineering, engineers will work to make the following sections more safe and efficient–highways, waterways, urban transportation, air transportation, coastal transportation, and aerospace.
  • Surveying: Surveying plays a major role in civil engineering. Civil engineers that work in surveying will use a variety of tools and instruments to observe and study different terrains. The goal is to carefully and accurately map and contour different areas in order to use for references in building layouts, property measurement, bridge construction, channel mapping (coastal and ocean), highway construction, and pipeline construction.

Although these are just a few of the many branches, it’s clear that civil engineering is a highly important profession in our society.