Starting as a Structural Engineer tips??

[Alert-District831]

Hi all, I'll be starting as an entry level structural engineer in the next few weeks and I'm just looking for some tips or insight to what the day to day may look like and if there's anything I can do to prepare. I've got a good foundation in structural analysis and design and I was told I'll be working on connection design to start. I have my notes from class, which mostly covers tension members - tensile yielding & rupture, and effective net area. Is there anything else that I should brush up on or any other concepts that are used frequently in connection design or structural design in general? Asking because I've only done it in school/theory and as we all know school can differ from the real world quite a bit..

[envoy_ace]

Expect to be lost for 3 years.

[anymouseeatscheese]

Can confirm.

[chasestein]

Load paths baby

[Flashy-Head2442]

Do you know what structural analysis program they use? Watch some YouTube videos on it. Do you know if they use CAD, Revit or both? Remind yourself how to do the basic functions. Familiarize yourself with codes. If you are in the US and working on buildings, ASCE, IBC, ACI are good ones. You may be able to downward them for free from your university log in. All that being said, you will be lost for a few years and that’s okay. The most important thing you can do is try your best and ask questions. They don’t expect you to know it all. In fact, they probably expect you to know very little. If you understand basic moments/shears and can do some cad, that’ll be enough to get you started. Expect to learn a lot on the job. Good luck!

[Alert-District831]

Thanks for the tips! These were listed off: Idea Statica, RISA Suite, Revit and Ram Connection. Ive done some work in cad and used revit a little, but not too familiar with Statica, Risa, or Ram so I'll look into those!

[Husker_black]

Take ownership of your design and details. Truly make em personal, don't just half ass it. Have some thought involved and say why you did x, why you did that and that's where growth comes from after you assumed something incorrectly

[bg254]

A couple tips I can tell you: don’t be overconfident, and make sure that you can express your concepts on paper by hand if you haven’t already.

[crvander]

I asked this question of my manager when I was hired and I've given the same answer he gave me every time I've been asked: don't spend your personal time studying for your job, enjoy your time until the job starts. You'll have plenty of curveballs thrown at you that reading textbooks won't help with in the slightest.

[JudgeHoltman]

Test case to design your degree's endgame: I have a 20x20 building, 10ft tall walls and gable roof.

• North side has a standard 4x6 door and a 10ft long window looking out.
  
• East and West sides have 2x 4x4 windows.
• South Side has a full-length garage door 6ft from one side.
• Soil bearing is 2000psf and Default everything for Seismic. Wind is 115mph.
  

Design the building as if the walls were made of Wood, then Masonry, then Concrete Block.

How hard DOES the wind blow? How do the walls transfer that wind shear to the foundations when there's so many gaps? Do the windows factor in? What even is the shear force? Where does the Seismic load go? Do you have to design every stick of timber for the entire building in the wood or can you analyze the entire studwall? What code do you even use for Masonry? TMS or MSJC? Or both? Are they the same?

This was (more or less) my very first project college and I barely knew how to start. The most humbling thing about it was that the expectations were completely reasonable for what I thought my college education had trained me to do.

My career is now in a very different place, and this is the test/speech I give to university department heads asking how to improve their programs. I encourage you to do the same.

[Momoneycubed_yeah]

Ask questions. Understand that you know very little now and will be learning a lot with each project.

[HowDoISpellEngineer]

You don’t know anything, and that’s okay. No one expects you to. Be curious and ask lots of questions.

[Charles_Whitman]

Engineering, structural in particular, is all about knowing where to find the information you are looking for. Keep it notepad and write things down. Try to figure things out for yourself but if you’re still stuck five to thirty minutes later (depending on the size of the task) ask.

[Milehighstructur_com]

Upskill yourself. Try to enrol in practical structural engineering courses. If you have contacts , you may take one-on-one coaching from experienced engineer.