Civil engineering student with questions about flood protection.

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CivilEngr

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I am a junior studying civil engineering. I am to the point where I start picking classes that can go toward my specialty within civil engineering. I would like to work as a coastal engineer. I'm not sure if that's the correct title but I am interested in things like flood protection, beach renourishment, dredging, and coastal structures. My ideal job would be working for the army corps of engineers or another company that specializes in areas like this.

What area should I focus my upper level classes on? It seems like geotechnical and structural would be the best for this type of work. Should I split my upper level classes between one of these or focus on one? I plan to take a coastal engineering class and a flood hazard/protective design class. This leaves me with 4 maybe 5 other classes to take.

I am going to email my advisor and ask the same question but I wanted to get some other opinions

Thanks for any help.

 
I am a junior studying civil engineering. I am to the point where I start picking classes that can go toward my specialty within civil engineering. I would like to work as a coastal engineer. I'm not sure if that's the correct title but I am interested in things like flood protection, beach renourishment, dredging, and coastal structures. My ideal job would be working for the army corps of engineers or another company that specializes in areas like this.
What area should I focus my upper level classes on? It seems like geotechnical and structural would be the best for this type of work. Should I split my upper level classes between one of these or focus on one? I plan to take a coastal engineering class and a flood hazard/protective design class. This leaves me with 4 maybe 5 other classes to take.

I am going to email my advisor and ask the same question but I wanted to get some other opinions

Thanks for any help.
Where are you going to school? I would STRONGLY recommend that you look into trying to co-op with the Corps if you can. That is the best way to get some experience and a pretty good way to get a job with them right out of school.

I co-oped with them for several semesters when I was in school and the experience was great and the job offer was basically automatic come graduation time. That was a great relief as I watched all my friends and classmates scrambling to find jobs...and that was before the economy tanked. When/If you get in the Corps after graduation, you enter their intern rotation. Basically you spend a couple months in all the different sections to get a feel for what kind of work they do. After you've finished your rotation, you can decide what section you'd like to be in, although there are no guarantees.

For your interests, I can definitely say the Jacksonville District would be a good fit if you can get in there. That's where I co-oped and went after school. They are big into the coastal work and also a lot of structural type stuff in the interior (think flood control in the swamps).

 
I go to Clemson University. I plan to apply for co-ops next semester. Clemson has a very good placement rate for co-op however its mainly for certain companies that come in and recruit. How would I go about getting a co-op with the army corp? Would I apply on USAJOBS, call the Jacksonville office, email a resume? There is also a Charleston, SC district which is close to me.

Thanks,

Jon

 
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I had a plan when I was going into upper-level classes. But it became an issue of graduating on time OR taking the classes I wanted to take.

 
AECOM has a Water division and they're working on multiple FEMA coastal projects right now. Alot of work is being done in California. Perhaps try to apply for internships or co-ops at AECOM's website. I don't know if positions are available but I know of several engineers in our company who do coastal work 100% of the time.

I'm not sure on exact classes to take because I do mainly Riverine studies with AECOM. The two courses you mentioned sound good to me. The flood hazard class sounds very good and it will be helpful since you'll most likely have to obtain a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM) certification once you have 2 years of experience.

 
I think you would have to go through your school in order to co-op...that's how I got mine. I would imagine there is some sort of job placement office there. I saw there is a section for Students & Recent Grads on USAJobs, but the whole thing needs to be coordinated with your school (when I did it, it was a pass/fail course worth 1 credit). There are a couple pretty good articles about it on the Huntington and Vicksburg District websites.

Huntington District

Vicksburg District

 
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