Undergraduate Civil Engineering Degree Program

Dow Environmental Sciences and Engineering Building viewed from the lake
Click for a larger image

"Civil engineers. . . are at the forefront of technology."

"Civil engineering graduates should be dancing in the streets."

"Recent starting salaries range from $30,000 to $52,000."

"We have a large number of nationally recognized and student-friendly faculty."

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2000-01 Occupational Outlook Handbook, “Employment of civil engineers is expected to increase [by 21-35%] through 2008. Spurred by general population growth and an expanding economy, more civil engineers will be needed to design and construct higher capacity transportation, water supply, and pollution control system; large buildings and building complexes; and to repair or replace existing roads, bridges and other public structures.”

Presently, it is an excellent time to be a civil engineer. Employers are offering rising salaries and sign-on bonuses to compete for our graduates. There are more civil engineering jobs today than we can provide graduates for. In Graduating Engineer UCLA civil engineering professor and chair, Dr. Michael K. Stenstrom says, “With the kind of employment picture being painted at top universities across the country, civil engineering graduates should be dancing in the streets. My overall feel is that it [the employment outlook] is probably the best that I’ve seen in five or six years.”

Excellent preparation for a career in civil engineering comes from a balance between classroom education and practical experience. Many of our students participate in the co-operative education program and most have some sort of summer internship. Our students look for jobs by a variety of methods, including using regular mail, phone calls, and just stopping into visit people over break because not all of our employers come to campus to recruit. One of our students wanted to intern in Colorado for the summer. After searching the online yellow pages for consulting firms in various areas, he found a civil engineering internship and thoroughly enjoyed his opportunity to live and work out west.

As for salaries we always caution students to not focus too much of your college major and career decision on starting salaries. The fact is that you should select a major for what interests you and gets you excited. After all, payday only comes around two times a month while most Americans work 8+ hours per day. With this in mind, recent starting annual salaries for undergraduate civil engineers have been approximately $30,000-52,000/year. Civil engineering students who spent a semester on a co-op assignment during the 2000-2001 school year earned an average of $11.59/hour.

What do our students do after they graduate?

Our students do a wide range of activities upon graduating with a baccalaureate degree in civil engineering. These include:

• Work as a design engineer in a consulting firm. Our graduates design bridges, roads and highway interchanges, golf courses, biking trails, water and wastewater treatment facilities, airports, large buildings, and dams- just to name a few.
• Work for large construction companies. Here our graduates oversee entire construction projects from cost estimates and submitting bids to scheduling projects and working with contractors.
• Work for local and city government planning for public transportation, setting up recycling programs, operating and managing drinking water plants, wastewater plants, and landfills for our solid waste.
• Manage/restore a watershed for a large metropolitan city in order to protect their drinking water supply and protect the local ecosystem.
• Work for government agencies such as the Department of Transportation, US Army Corps, US Geological Survey, US Forest Service, or Department of Interior.
• Many of our engineering graduates move up the ladder to managerial positions.
• Get a teaching certificate and teach K-12 science or math.
• Some of our graduates go on to law school. They find that their engineering degree serves as a solid foundation for law.
• Each year several of our undergraduates go directly on to graduate school (most get a full ride which means paid tuition and fees and a $14,000-$20,000/year stipend). Our graduates are in big demand by the 150+ U.S. civil engineering graduate programs.
• Go on for your Ph.D. and become a professor at a university (several of our own professors received their undergraduate degrees from Michigan Tech).
• Our graduates also go to graduate school in other areas. For example, some have gone on for their MBA and others choose to study architecture.

What is Michigan Tech's civil engineering curriculum like?

Our curriculum is designed so you will complete your degree in four years. As a civil engineering student you will take first and second year math, engineering science, physics, chemistry, and fundamentals of engineering like other engineering majors. These background courses will build a strong foundation for your engineering degree. After this, you will take elective courses from the six specialty areas of civil engineering: construction, environmental, geotechnical, structural, transportation, and water resources. You will then choose an additional elective in four of the six specialty areas. Beyond that can choose to specialize or remain broad in your selection of electives. We have attached a table to this letter that shows the civil engineering curriculum.

Our comprehensive senior engineering design classes are “real-world” projects and we typically collaborate with practitioners. Over this past semester break, a group of 12 students went to South America with one of our faculty to participate in a volunteer engineering and construction senior design project. Other recent design projects have included an investigation of alternative designs for a local wastewater collection and treatment system, a bikeway planning and design project for the Houghton area, the design of a timber foot bridge for the North Country Trail System, and the development of a parking plan for Michigan Tech’s campus.

We have a large number of nationally recognized and student-friendly faculty. We have listed several of the faculty you will meet in our program in the table below.

Expertise of some of Michigan Tech's
Civil & Environmental Engineering faculty.
To the Faculty Home Pages

Dr. Robert Baillod, wastewater collection and treatment	Dr. Neil Hutzler, groundwater and solid waste management
Dr. Tess Ahlborn, materials testing, reinforced concrete design, pre-stressed concrete	Dr. Ralph Hodek, soil mechanics and foundational engineering
Dr. Bill Bulleit, structural analysis, timber design, reinforced concrete design, finite elements, structural reliability, and pre-stressed concrete	Dr. Stan Vitton, applied geomechanics, mechanics of seismic signals
Dr. Bogue Sandberg, timber, reinforced concrete, and steel design	Dr. Bernie Alkire, cold weather effects on transportation materials, geophysical methods applied to transportation problems
Dr. Sheryl Sorby, spatial visualization, engineering education and outreach	Dr. Tom Van Dam, pavement materials and design, concrete design
Dr. George Dewey, civil engineering materials and reinforced concrete design	Dr. Bill Sproule, transportation planning, traffic engineering, airport planning and design, public transit
Dr. Kris Mattila, scheduling, linear scheduling, construction productivity, construction safety	Dr. Chris Williams, bituminous materials characterization, pavement design and performance prediction
Ms. Linda Philips,construction management, legal issues,	Dr. David Watkins, water resources planning and management, graphical information systems

Why study civil engineering at Michigan Tech?

A Michigan Tech degree has long been recognized as an excellent foundation for engineers. Civil engineering at Michigan Tech is no exception. In today’s world of rapidly changing technology the demand for quality engineers is ever rising. It is an exciting and opportune time to be entering the field of civil engineering. As a graduate of our department you will be well equipped as a planner, designer, builder, or manager of the facilities that are vital for the welfare of people and our environment both nationally and globally.

Michigan Tech civil engineering students have a unique opportunity to participate in the Engineering Enterprise program. The Engineering Enterprise is an innovative approach to engineering education. Each Enterprise is composed of a team of students that work in a business-like setting on “real-world” projects. With a generous gift from Bob and Ellen Thompson, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has been able to establish the Thompson Scholars program which will ultimately support 100 undergraduate students with full in-state tuition scholarships. Scholarship recipients participate in the Pavement Design, Construction, and Materials Enterprise.

In addition, several of our faculty have received prestigious educational grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation for developing innovative classes and laboratory experiences. As a student, you will be immersed in a state-of-the-art curriculum. We also have faculty involved at the national level on civil engineering education and professional accreditation issues. Class sizes range from 10-15 for a laboratory, 10-15 for a senior design class, and perhaps 25-45 for an advanced level course. Our student body is diverse and includes students from nearly every state and many other countries. Although employers want graduates with a strong technical education, they also want students who have demonstrated leadership, innovation, written and oral communication skills, and the ability to work in teams. Fortunately, Michigan Tech has many opportunities for students to work on these important skills in class and out of class. Our students are involved in a wide variety of campus activities including sports, the university radio station, acting, music, writing for the student newspaper, or working for Habitat for Humanity. We have three active student professional societies: American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Associated General Contractors (AGC), and Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). These groups coordinate field trips, social and community events, and bring in professional speakers. This spring Michigan Tech is hosting ASCE’s 2001 Regional Concrete Canoe, Steel Bridge and Timber Beam competition.

Several of the students in our department have taken advantage of opportunities to study abroad in various parts of the world including Australia, Mexico, Germany, Japan, and Scotland. Students can choose to spend a couple weeks to a full year studying in another country. Some of our civil engineering faculty will be teaching in Russia and Italy this summer.

Students who are not ready to study abroad, but would like to enjoy another part of the country and study on another campus have the opportunity to participate in the National Student Exchange program. This allows Michigan Tech students to take specialized courses that are not offered at MTU, experience other cultures/climates, and check out other graduate schools while paying Michigan Tech tuition.

More benefits and advantages:

The Civil and Environmental Engineering Department occupies space in both the Dow Environmental Sciences & Engineering Building and Dillman Hall. Over 60,000 ft² of space houses modern equipment for instruction and research. In additional to experimental laboratories, the Department maintains a SUN Workstation computing lab and 4 PC computing labs.

As for driving to Houghton and Michigan Tech, we are located 8 hours north of Chicago, 4 hours east of Duluth, 5 hours from Madison, and 6.5 hours to Minneapolis/St. Paul. It takes 8-10 hours to drive here from the Detroit/Toledo area. We are located on the Keweenaw Peninsula that juts out into Lake Superior. Michigan's entire Upper Peninsula has a population of only 300,000 so there is uncrowded room for many outdoor activities. In fact, the university maintains its own downhill ski facility (currently lighted and with snow-making capabilities). We also have cross-country skiing facilities. We have easy access to Lake Superior, the Sylvania Tract Wilderness Area, several National and State Forests, the largest wildlife refugee east of the Mississippi (Seney, located about 3 hours east of here), two National Parks (Isle Royale and Pictured Rocks Lakeshore), and countless miles of beach, trails, and rivers. Skiing, canoeing, snowboarding, hiking, biking, hunting, fishing, camping and climbing are some of the activities our students routinely enjoy. The surrounding area is truly an outdoor paradise. If you also like great indoor activities like concerts and plays, we are very excited about our new Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts (check out upcoming performances)

It is easy to walk safely around town and campus, and a bike path runs behind our building along the lake. Michigan Tech is located in the safest college town in Michigan and the 8th safest in the U.S. in a study of 467 cities and towns that have a college with 5,000 or more students (Crime at College: The Student Guide to Personal Safety).The small, college town atmosphere of Houghton is abundant with friendly, laid-back “Yoopers”.

We could go on and on. We love our program and think you will too - we have great students, faculty, curriculum, and facilities in a great location. We hope this letter helps you learn more about civil engineering and Michigan Tech. Should you or your parents have any other questions, please contact us by telephone or email. For the current civil engineering degree requirements please refer to Advising. We look forward to seeing you at Michigan Tech!

Contacts:
Dr. Bill Sproule,   906-487-2324 or Dr. William Bulleit,   906-487-3495

All the faculty look forward to seeing you at Michigan Tech!

If you are a Michigan Tech student or a student enrolled at another college or university who wishes to transfer into the Civil Engineering program, E-mail:   Ms. Julie Ross

Civil & Environmental Engineering
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, Michigan, 49931 - 1295, USA
Department Phone: 1-906-487-2520
Department Fax: 1-906-487-2943
Department E-mail: cee@mtu.edu


Updated Version: March 11, 2005