Civil engineering Student?

Question

I am a woman studying civil engineering, and i would like your opinions on how women civil engineers are treated on job sites?

I ove engineering and will continue tostudy hard and workhard until i get there no matter what I may have to deal with butI am curious to know if any of you have any interesting stories on how women are treated and howbest to dealwith discrimination?

Answer 1

As a civil engineer, I can tell you that the most important thing is to be confident and know your project inside out. At the same time it is important to be able to get along and not take yourself too seriously or seem too important.

Answer 2

"I am a woman studying civil engineering, and i would like your opinions on how women civil engineers are treated on job sites?"

For this portion of the question, I do not have any experience. I am a male electrical engineer, and do not know anybody working in the civil engineering profession. I could only venture a guess that you might run into some lunk-head construction worker if you were to visit a construction site. Again, I don't know.

"I am curious to know if any of you have any interesting stories on how women are treated and how best to deal with discrimination?"

Here is where I do have a story that may relate to you. My sister is studying computer engineering and has a neat contract with a company that gives her a scholarship along with engineering work on her time off during winter/summer, etc. Apparently, one of her superiors repeatedly made remarks such as: "women should go into mechanical engineering, not computer engineering". I am not sure how she dealt with it exactly, but I believe she just shrugged it off and it went away. To me, the comment does not make any sense. Why would women be predisposed to learn mechanical engineering vs. computer engineering? One would think that an ignorant person would say that women have no business in engineering in general.

Answer 3

Any engineer, male and female, has the potential to be treated poorly on the job site. It will all depend on how well you can do your job and how well you treat the people on the job. I have seen well qualified male engineers get treated very poorly because they think they can do someones job better than they can. I have also seen a not so qualified female engineer take charge of a multimillion dollar parking garage and have it built before the deadline and under budget because the workers wanted to work for her. However I also saw a female engineer show up on the job in high heals and a mini skirt who started yelling at everyone her first day. The workers did everything they could to make her life a living hell and they succeeded, she quit a couple months later. Like I said it will all depend on how you handle yourself. Good luck and don't worry about what could happen on the job. If field work doesn't work for you there is a huge need for good engineers to do design work because "build-ability" starts in the office.

Answer 4

I am a female engineer (chemical and environmental) and have been working for almost 6 years in both the consulting field and a plant environment. Let me tell you it's not that bad. For the most part people don't give you a hard time as long as you work hard and do the job well. But there are a handful of people that will give you trouble. There are people that make inappropriate comments (lewd, sexist, etc). There are people that will think you can't do the job because you are a girl. There are people that will talk to your male coworkers instead of you even if you are the one that is in charge. I've run into it all. The best way to deal with these problems: ignore the inappropriate comments, prove the people you can do the job, and speak up. If you earn their respect, you won't have too many problems.

Answer 5

Me and my wife are both civil engineers and have been working in the construction industry for years. I can say that she was and still treated fairly well by everyone - workers, colleagues, managers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, consultants, etc.
I understand your dilemma because civil engineering is a male-dominated field. You will be discriminated at the job site for sure but that is mostly to protect yourself from the potential hazards of the industry. No one will let you climb scaffolds nor inspect the insides of a big pipelines, etc. Just give everyone due respect and it will be reciprocated. Good luck..

Answer 6

I am an electrical engineer working for the architects department of a local authority in the North East (Gateshead) and we have a few female architects, architectural technicians, landscape technicians and even a female installation electrician.
Everyone is treat in the same way - with the utmost repect and we all work as a team. I have not come across any sexual discrimination in the 35 years I have been working in the construction industry.

Discrimination is usually caused by the so called complainant trying to be different from everyone else. That goes for sexual and racial discrimination.

If you want to be a civil engineer good luck, I hope you enjoy your career as much as I have. Just give everyone with the respect that you expect them to give you.

Best of luck

Answer 7

As a woman you will be treated differently on a construction site where 99.9% of the workers are usually male. You can probably guess how labourers act. I've seen how my civil colleagues get treated.
If you're not afraid of a lot of staring, I suppose the best way to combat discrimination is to dress appropriately (i.e. no tight shorts), act confidently, don't let them see that you are being affected. Basically just ignore them.
If you're working in a team with them they will probably treat you much better than if you're just passing by.
Don't let this issue put you off.....we need more female civil engineers!

Answer 8

for introduction, i think you can try Timoshenko book, depend on what kind of structure, is it concrete or steel building, , LRFD should help you about steel structure, but i forget the title and author for concrete one

Answer 9

if you are civil you will be treat well
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