Civil & Environmental Engineering at theUniversity of Detroit Mercy

Civil & Environmental

Engineering

Structures

Transportation

Environment

Hydrology

Construction

Soils/Geotech Materials

Site Planning

What do CE’s do?Each area has: Typical Projects Engineering Tasks Specific Skills / Personality

Site Development—Typical Project

Site Development—Engineering

Design so rain water runs away from homes.

Design storm and sanitary sewers to take away rain and waste.

Site Development—Skills

CAD:

Slope calculation

Site Development—Personality

Site developers often work with lots of people. (Home owners, city councils.)

Transportation—Typical Projects

Transportation—Engineering (Roads) Forecasting travel

Planning

Checking Safety

Transportation—Skills

Able to make tables & charts

Write reports

Enjoy simulations

Transportation Personality

Very frequent dealings with public

Construction—Typical Projects

Construction—Engineering

Know what is important in a design.

If something isn’t working, make a decision on what to do.

Construction—Skills

Tracking a schedule

Dealing with questions

Construction—Personality

Decisive Like outdoors Must be an adventurer—stay in one place

for two years, then move. Repeat…

Soils / Geotechnical Engineering—Typical Projects Any construction project

Roads, Buildings, Dams

Geotech—Engineering

Determine if a structure can be held by the soil.

Designing soil retaining systems

Soils / Geotechnical Engineering—Skills Calculating

weight of the soil

Supervise crews

Geotech–Personality

Like a mix of indoor and outdoor work Like manipulating test equipment

Materials-Typical Projects

All construction projects

Materials—Engineering

Understand cement chemistry & structure

Materials—Skills

Proportion materials

Operate test equipment

Environment—Projects

Environment—Engineering

Determine how to clean water or hazardous waste

Environment—Skills

Chemistry

Understand Bio-organisms

Hydraulics & Hydrology

Hydrology—Engineering

Determine if rain will cause flooding in a creek.

Design the water collection system (storm sewer)

Hydrology—Skills

Predict rainfall

Follow route of water flow

Structures

Structures—Engineering

Determine how strong a building needs to be to resist wind, earthquakes, etc.

Structures—Skills

Static and dynamic analysis (Advanced physics)

Understand how and why materials fail, and how to prevent it.

Structures—Personality

Exceptional in math and drafting/visualization

Nose in a book

Or do it all:

Money

Civil & Environmental Engineers earn a little less than other engineers.

Civil & Environmental Engineers are the happiest of all engineers.

Civil & Environmental Engineers are among the happiest of all professions.

Do you want to be happy and wealthy?

My Career in Civil Engineering

My First Engineering Job (coop): City Design

I designed and supervised construction of new utilities.

1st Job after college: Army Corp

I designed $1B Lock and Dam projects, saving Millions of $’s.

Professional work while at UDM

I designed structural systems that improve vehicle safety.

Tall Buildings

I designed a testing method for foundation support piles for tall buildings.

Student Involvement in ResearchWith a team of students, we won $5000 in a design contest.

Transit PlanningComing to Southeast Michigan in 2 years!

Interdisciplinary Work

Working with Architects on City Planning

After a day of engineering

Free time and money to enjoy life.

Skills to help organizations The right skills to help organizations.

Questions?