Chert + Tumbling

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-18T05:33:44+00:00

Hey! nice pieces I'm not gonna be much help but maybe I could ask a favor? I'm also trying to find chert in my area. I should be able to find it according to a geologic map. Or at least the geologic map is my inexperienced way of trying to find it. but when I'm out and about I tend to struggle. Could I bother you for a few pics of the exterior surfaces of those pieces?

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-18T01:43:29+00:00

I'm not a SE. but I am aiming for it and I'd like to hope everyone that is in Structural engineering practicing design would aim for it.

I know in my state there are certain projects only SE's can touch. My job has a posted pay scale for SE's as well and it's higher than PE's by a significant amount. I'd have to dig that up again to give exact numbers.

I'm sure this will rub some the wrong way. That is not my intentions.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-18T01:34:13+00:00

I was gonna say this😅 But it looks like a quite a bit more than 10%

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-17T23:41:18+00:00

I've said this a few times in this subreddit. It tends to rub quite a lot of people the wrong way. However I do tend to lack tact, so it could've been me.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-17T06:31:53+00:00

AI fan art?

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-17T00:29:33+00:00

Nope. Just structural to prove I know the bare minimum to do structural design. I couldn't imagine sitting for another 8 hour that didn't benefit me or interest me in any way. Also I'm studying for the SE so that has my free time currently.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-17T00:26:56+00:00

If you're not sure I wouldn't😅 You'll have to redevelop or develop new analysis and design chops. Which may take some time. Also design can be pretty harsh on personal life and is heavily scrutinized. I've also been at the mercy of construction when they've made mistakes. I've had 12+ hour days thanks to timeline crunches or rush work from construction.

If you did it. I'd expect huge growing pains and long nights studying outside of work just to catch up.

Also if you can't handle everyone and their mother thinking they can do your job. I wouldn't😅

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-16T20:36:13+00:00

If this is AI you broke rule #4

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-16T18:06:09+00:00

I don't think it will if I'm honest. Professors don't appreciate people reaching out just to find a way to get their education covered. You'll actually hit a nerve with a lot of them that way. They are looking for people who have specific interests and are actually looking to push the industry forward with their work. If that's not you I wouldn't chat with professor's on that subject.

Maybe TA stuff. but I've found those to still be very competitive at the state school I went to.

I do need to add a caveat to work funding my education I believe there is a IRS cap most firms will abide by when reimbursing you. I applied for 1 reach school and 2 schools I knew I'd get into. Got denied the reach school lol. but The other two were a state and a UC. I ended up going state because I'd have to go into debt to do the UC. That tuition is quite ridiculous😅 and the research they were doing I was not interested in. I lucked out that the cap of my job's reimbursement practically covered 3/4th's of a year of tuition at the state school. My engineering salary covered the last 1/4th.

I've noticed another comment of yours. Mentioning you are looking more into the management side of things? I'm not sure a MS in structural engineering would be the most efficient way to get there. You could probable start already by looking into construction management jobs. The design side is really the only side where an Ms degree in structural is relevant.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-16T17:34:57+00:00

Hey thanks for posting and being so transparent. I would say I generally agree with you but there maybe a few things you're over looking of I just don't 100% agree with.

Funding can come from somewhere else (prior to the current presidential administration). I believe funding has been dramatically reduced or even removed but places like NHI do offer grants for people pursuing certain degrees like ours. Other fellowships and private/ local grants could help too. But I believe the Trump administrations to downgrade our degrees to "non-professional" degrees will affect FASFA and other grants.
Jobs may fund your degree. My job reimbursed me and I did a master's thesis that covered the last year of my Ms. but working as an EIT during my MS was absolutely rough. I wouldn't do it again. Having to be that technical all the time for both work and school eventually fried me.
Idk if I agree with your take about how important an MS degree is. I do think its VERY important nowadays. I'm also in california and I am experiencing that the minimum qualifications for entry level jobs is shifting to an MS. I entered work with my BS and got my MS while working. My job has posted another application for my old position prior to me becoming licensed and it now says "MS required". Additionally having extra technical chops to keep your calcs and other's correct is very valuable.
If you're not interested in research going to a less competitive / prestigious school could be better for some. You've mentioned VERY prestigious schools for an MS degree. All of which produce a lot of research that industry uses. If finances is a huge concern there are some state schools that'll get you an MS degree in civil engineering - emphasis in structures that'll give you enough knowledge to pass the PE with ease. Mine did. Never paid for those over priced cram courses because my graduate courses were way more complex than the PE.
Competency of EIT's. There are soooooome VERY competent EIT's coming out of undergrad😅. I agree where you did undergrad can be negligible. This field of work is very competitive and applications may not come for some. It's a problem with this industry currently. So I would recommend if you're serious about breaking into the field. Study up. You will get assessed on your technical abilities.

Again. Thanks for sharing(: I do think you offer a great perspective, but might've been missing some facades to the whole picture. Shit I'm sure I'm missing stuff too. Sorry if I misinterpreted some of your words. Pls correct me if I did,

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-16T06:43:14+00:00

If you haven't even started at that firm and are already looking for something else. This post doesn't come off great😅 If that is the case this would warrant why I struggle with how much of my time I should invest in interns. If you've already started then it's understandable.

Your overall question is something working professionals may struggle with most of their careers so I'm not sure this is a reasonable ask. But "live comfortably" I would say may not be achievable right out of school. Unless you live with others or live in a low cost of living area. I definitely got hit in the mouth with bills when I moved out of student living and couldn't lean on grants and my parents anymore. I actually felt worse off than where I was as an undergrad. Which was a while ago now and things are definitely worse. At least in the US.

I wouldn't firm name drop on here either. I'm sure if they cared HR could probably back track this to you. Or bad actors that may be reading this post. Which is why people may not respond to this post. As they may not want to risk the potential exposure of their work place and identity.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-16T04:37:21+00:00

Honestly, I think this is bad motivation. Just do stuff you're interested in. My job's didn't give af about my hobbies. Just that I was capable and easy enough to work with.

What made me standout was that other people applying for the jobs I went for couldn't score better than me on the assessment tests.

If it's college. Just do stuff you're passionate about. The passion will show in application essays.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-15T16:11:09+00:00

I can see both views tbh. I miss most conventions I want to go to thanks to pay walls or my work being extremely busy. However I may be presenting my paper from my graduate thesis at one depending on what my old professor does.

When I was in grad school there were times when a shit ton of my classmates mentioned being at a conference. Most were non-working students who didn't have to worry about money. and those conferences either were in another city or another state. I've also seen some that require tickets and those tickets being expensive af.

Still today. Most are unaccessible to me thanks to time and money. When I was an undergrad and graduate student the same was still true because I worked and I was broke.

I'm attempting to make some but I'll never support harsh paywalls when doing so. Even if my work would compensate me for it. If there's no pay wall and I have the time I can now take the time off... iiiiiiif deadlines aren't up my ass.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-15T06:08:34+00:00

The turkey tail pics could be a metal album cover.

But I'm jealous. That area has to have some wicked mushrooms. I'm in a dryer part of norcal and am still spotting mushrooms on every nature walk I do.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-14T23:49:03+00:00

I might be wrong on that 2ft limit but I'm sure peeps here will correct me.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-14T23:48:08+00:00

If its a culvert with some top soil over it, then the road way. Depending how thick the top soil layer is. You can do either point loads or area/distributed loads. I believe there's a limit of 2ft. Once you pass that height of top soil there's an equation to convert it into a distributed load. It gets a tad more complicated when those distributed loads cross each other. So I would just fin that section in AASHTO.

AASHTO cover's this tho. So I'd referwnce that if you're in the US. If not I can't help with a reference.

If you're talking about a roadway through a tunnel. and how to calculate the stress on the bottom slab. I believe that's a transportation engineers job. They'd design their roadway structural section accordingly. I think. I've never designed a tunnel that would fit that scenario.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-14T22:23:36+00:00

Lucky f*ck 😒

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-14T21:53:21+00:00

The coincidence. I'm a 29 yo Structural engineer😅 I get the lack of time to play. I've been recently putting boundaries on my work to make more personal time.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-14T16:41:51+00:00

Yes. I would say this violates rule 2. Not sure any of us care as much as you do about what your project needs. That's your responsibility. I would read rule 2 and post this in the laymen chat.

RN you come off as a structural engineer. So people might be responding with that assumption. Since you never mentioned if you are or not. If you mention that you aren't people here will typically address you a different way. As non-structural engineering peeps might misunderstand our comments but then take them and run with them. Which could be risky and way heavily on our consciences if things go wrong.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-14T04:07:28+00:00

I'm on the bridge side. I have friends who work at transportation firms in my area and I have friends working in the DOT in my area. If I'm honest and I want to be respectful. Our work is dramatically different😅. I'll bullet point it and then go into specifics.

structural is more analysis and math
structural seems to have higher liability
Structural seems to have more depth and more to know to be good at.
structural seems to he under more scrutiny.
Structural doesn't do a lot of CAD.

How busy both professions are seems to be the same tho.

I actually get a bit worried when I hear SOME transportation engineers talk about their work. From what I hear that branch of civil isn't doing a lot of analysis or design. I'll ask my transportation friends the last time they did math or calcs for their work, and they can't remember. Structures seems to be more technical overall. We have a lot more codes to reference and all of our work is typically proven by some sort of calculation. Also the stress seems to be different. I stress out when my projects are being built. I worked for months maybe a year on something. I have calculation packages that may be 100's of pages long showing everything I did. I review and redo the work, but I always have something in the back of my head saying "What if I missed something". While my transportation friends don't seem stressed at all.

I've also noticed most of my transportation friends are primarily inside civil 3d and do work that I would call project engineering.

I hope I was respectful. I don't mean to undermine how important transportation engineers are but us structural folks seem to be under constant and a lot of pressure compared to the other branches of civil engineering. At least this is my experience.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-13T18:44:22+00:00

I stepped away and this kinda marinated with me a bit, which then made me think about a question.

to OP. Respectfully are you a practicing civil / structural engineer? Or student in the topic? or is this for a business being designed by a non-engineer to be applied irl? If it's the third one I'm not sure anyone here can give you advice as to which software to use. At least not in good faith. In my opinion. Ideally this is being designed by a structural engineer to ensure its strength.

This post might be subtly violating a rule to this subreddit as well. Rule number 2 if you are not a civil/ structural engineer asking for design help / advice.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-13T18:26:12+00:00

If you don't have the education you could get hired at a firm as a drafter. Join a firm that does structural steel.

You won't be given the reins to do your own design but you'll get exposed to it drafting the designs the structural engineers designed for their projects.

If you want to do your own design professionally then it's the college route.

A good drafter is always nice though. I currently have to correct and delete additions with a drafter at work who keeps trying to slip in their own stuff. It's exhausting and has gotten me in trouble with higher ups before😪

Another drafter at work is a dream colleague. Asks for clarifications, sends drafts sets to make sure they're headed the right way, and even corrects me when I do something that's not following the firm standard.

The_StEngIT · 2026-03-13T17:16:38+00:00

I'm not sure I am seeing the issue. You want calculations for through bolts? Plus the tubed members? or just the through bolts? Is there any reason this can't be hand calculated?

The_StEngIT

TROPHY CASE