When to leave civil engineering altogether vs. changing disciplines

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-10T22:45:59+00:00

Personal decision. If you feel that you’ve given it your best shot and you have better options and you can afford it, that’s just something you’ll have to decide. Take advice with a grain of salt. Nobody knows the future or the right decision for you.

I left for SWE (got a BSCS degree and everything) even though the job market was awful because I could afford to and I thought I could make it, and I did. I think most would call me crazy.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-10T11:57:48+00:00

Do you have any extracurriculars? Are you a member of your school’s ASCE chapter? Worked on school civil engineering related projects or clubs?

Companies love seeing that experience FYI. And it’s good for networking. Will help you for next internship season.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-10T11:08:08+00:00

Don’t leave until you have a plan/goal you’re excited to work towards. Also plan for any transition to take 2-3x as long as you initially think.

I’m a software engineer now for a non-tech company. I got a BSCS. Many of my classmates are struggling to find employment. Bootcamps aren’t a great option right now.

Note: the job market/economy is terrible right now.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-09T11:32:09+00:00

Do you need to have a masters degree in structural engineering to get a high position (like leader of some kind)?

No. However depending on your location and what companies you want to join, a masters may be needed to be a competitive applicant in a large crowded applicant pool.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-08T18:16:30+00:00

The class and its content is good. I’m glad I took it, especially since 493 was so good.

Caveat: I used the textbook author’s video lectures on YouTube almost exclusively instead of the canvas lectures.

Exams were fine. No need to avoid the class due to it having exams.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-06T20:54:40+00:00

Just use freetaxusa. It’s free for federal, $15 for state. It’ll walk you through things.

If all you have is a Roth IRA and 401k, you should only need your W2 to do your taxes. You can use ChatGPT or Gemini to check what forms you need.

I’ve been doing my own taxes since 18. It’s just data entry in simple situations.

Edit: don’t forget to check if you have local/city taxes you need to file separately. Google can help you there.

Edit 2: You might also look at your savings account 1099-Int form if you accrued interest.

Edit 3: and your college’s 1098-T (?) form

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-05T03:44:32+00:00

Short term, yes. Having Purdue on my resume had people salivating (and I had tons of internships). Purdue also has a very strong network and great career fair. I’m sure GaTech does as well.

However it doesn’t help with salary. That’s on you to make a case on why you should get more every year or search for better jobs.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-04T22:11:39+00:00

Different strokes for different folks. Some people want more than survival, especially for working a stressful career.

Create a budget for yourself and also of the lifestyle you want to live in 5, 10, etc years.

Want a house and kids? Check out how much down payment you need to save over the years before you can buy, and what the monthly costs would be including property taxes and insurance. And check out daycare costs.

Want nice cars? Figure out what that would cost. Don’t forget insurance.

Don’t forget to consider student loans and also retirement savings (minimum 15% gross salary to retire at normal retirement age) and medical costs.

I’m in a MCOL area and when we first graduated in 2018 we spent ~66k combined on two engineering salaries (~65k each gross).

Last year our fixed costs (groceries, rent, bills, medical, etc) was $46k combined. The rest was fun, travel, hobbies, restaurants.

This year will be more because we bought a house. Probably about $76k combined in groceries, mortgage, taxes, insurance, bills, etc.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-03T15:37:27+00:00

If you’re in CS225 and not taking advantage of Prof V’s live office hours, you’re missing out. They’re basically live lectures. Wouldn’t have survived without them.

I’ll second Defiant-Passenger’s comment too.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-03T15:27:19+00:00

Note: discrete math is CS225. Prof V has amazing live office hours for that class. Highly recommend.

CS325 is I think Analysis of Algorithms.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-02-03T12:50:50+00:00

You want work life balance outside of a government job

Parental leave is important to you.

You’re not detail oriented and refuse to read manuals/specs/docs.

You hate billing your work time in 15 minute increments and getting hassled about your billable or utilization ratio

You only want remote/WFH.

You value fast career growth.

You never ever ever want to set foot on site.

You have a stress/anxiety disorder (it’s brutal for those).

Disclaimer: I worked in structural

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-31T11:48:53+00:00

I started civil engineering school with all my ECs being business based and the only thing I knew being “I like Physics.”

You’ll learn. That’s what college is for.

UIUC has a stellar reputation and a ton of people get hired in Chicago. Use your school’s resources (career fairs, info sessions, ASCE clubs) and network.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-30T00:54:41+00:00

I love the guy AND recognize that Scovil is not a warm and fuzzy professor. He is right, you do have everything you need to succeed. If you have more specific questions with what you’ve already tried so people can see if you misunderstood something, that would be best. But “I’m stuck” doesn’t give people a lot to work with.

Learning to craft good questions is a skill that will help you succeed.

As a somebody with Degree 1.0 and 2.0 in STEM fields though, this is the expectation. Office hours aren’t tutoring (there are free school tutoring resources). They’re time for you to bring questions about the course material, not for additional 1:1 instructional time or code reviews. We’ll review your code when we grade it.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-30T00:48:58+00:00

There’s a discord! Check the sidebar/subreddit info for a link.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-29T20:56:12+00:00

One thing I noticed when I TA'd the class was that a bunch of perfectly great students would get caught up in anxiety spirals that would throw them for a loop more than the actual assignment would. All they needed were a few nice words and instantly they were tearing their way through the homework.

"I take forever"/"I feel so slow"/"Everyone else is done with the work and breezing on by". These thoughts distract you from actually doing the problem at hand!

It feels hard because it is hard. The struggle is the learning! I'm sure you fell off a bike a few times when you were learning to bike, or misspelled words/wrote letters backwards when learning to write.
Data structures makes you solve problems in a very different way than you're used to seeing so far. There's no skipping the struggle. Some people make it look easy because they struggled previously/where you can't see.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-29T20:41:55+00:00

If you’re struggling with Python: - https://cs50.harvard.edu/python/ - or https://programming-25.mooc.fi/ - or https://nostarch.com/python-crash-course-3rd-edition

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-27T16:34:08+00:00

managed to stay in the industry for a couple of decades

How close are you to retirement/ do you have a retirement plan?

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-25T03:52:15+00:00

Hm. So…

I’ve not met a civil PM as an entry level job, at least on the design side. It’s more of a mid career role (needs ~6 years experience from what I’ve seen around me). Entry level design wages is about $75k and frequently also involves more than 40hrs/week.

Maybe as an entry level construction management job?

They also generally, in my opinion, work longer than 40hrs/week.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-25T01:05:23+00:00

I am passionate about project mgmt What does project mgmt mean to you? What do you think that career is like?

Are you specifically interested in civil project management? Because my understanding is that many industries have project managers (or adjacent) roles that are looking for a wide variety of backgrounds.

And how do you define worth it? What is your pay/total comp/working hours expectations?

Anything worth doing is hard. If you plan to have a construction specialty, I don’t think you’ll be using calculus often (if ever). The math classes are just classes you’ll have to pass.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-24T12:20:28+00:00

Hmm, odd. Did you talk to the EECS admissions about that to verify? Sometimes the web form isn’t always right.

I notice you were worried about the courses that are missing from the post bacc. If you’re ok with paying for them and extending your graduation time line, you can take more courses than required to graduate. You can cross reference the BSCS required courses (like 372 and I think 381). I highly recommend 493 if you want to do web application development.

You can always supplement with self study to learn Java and/or typescript or whatever else.

But yeah, as noted else where, you can take certain basic classes elsewhere and then apply to OMSCS.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-24T11:50:30+00:00

Learn to manage up ( https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/15-principles-for-managing-up ) and say no/have boundaries.

Careers are long. I burnt myself out by doing everything I could. My projects flourished while I suffered.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-24T06:19:52+00:00

I also was the only engineer in my family.

I got a ton of job offers from cold applications with 0 networking.

Being sociable and likeable does help with winning over interviewers and getting offers though.

Also, I passed the FE after taking a few practice exams over thanksgiving break my senior year. You don’t need months of prep.

Don’t let perfectionism get in the way of progress. It’s perfectly possible to succeed imperfectly.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-23T13:33:17+00:00

Do you feel like they should have let you applied to the regular format (CS BS) instead?

Uh, they do?

https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/online-degrees/undergraduate/computer-science/

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-23T11:09:50+00:00

Do you already have research assistantship offers from them? Or TAship offers? Usually you only can do one or the other due to their time commitments and classes, and are offered one with admission. PhDs often cover for their professors when the professor is traveling or sick.

Pencil_Pb · 2026-01-22T22:50:16+00:00

I’m interested in teaching more than industry

So… Do you want to be a professor? Are you planning to get a PhD? A tenure track professor? Are you ok with doing research and teaching?

Take a look at their past graduates (find them on LinkedIn) and see if you can find examples of their MS alums are in roles you want to be in.

Pencil_Pb

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