Civil/Environmental Eng. self study 2

[revots]

I am a student of electrical engineering. It is late into my degree to switch majors. In the mean time I would like to begin self study in Civil and Environmental engineering. What sort of topics and books might be covered in a degree program related to these fields? Any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[Ron]

Check the curriculum in the college in which you are studying electrical engineering. Pick up the things you don't have.

 

[revots]

Thank you for your reply. My school does not have an environmental engineering program. I will attempt to find the curriculum of other schools.

Another limitation is money, I don't have the money to take additional courses, hence self study over courses.

Summaries of curriculum do not mention the books used, so perhaps the question in this thread should be changed exclusively to what are recommended books of any topic related to the fields of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

 

[Ron]

revots...that's an overly broad question. Different curricula have different ideas of the appropriate textbooks to use. With a little research, you can determine the textbook that each instructor uses. When you search a university's program, drill down to the instructor and read the syllabus....that should give you the textbook they use as well as an outline of the course of study.

Good luck. You're taking a difficult road to get there, but I applaud your initiative.

 

[revots]

Thank you again for your prompt replies. I will attempt to apply that advice. Thank you for your consideration.

 

[dhengr]

Revots:
If you need a place to start, and to get a taste of the whole field, why not see if you can pick up some used old editions of Civil and Environmental Engineering Handbooks, for the basics and a good fundamental overview of the various topics. Then maybe newer editions for the current thinking and means of doing thing and materials used. This might narrow down and eliminate some areas of practice which appear less interesting to you. Check your own school’s engineering library, or an inter-uni lending program. Even if your school doesn’t have a Civil or Environmental degree program, they may still have some of the basic books as ref. matr’l.
Good Luck

 

[wannabeSE]

To find what texts are used for a class, try the college bookstore's website.

 

[bimr]

You can buy used books on Amazon.

At this point it would appear that your best option is get the EE degree and then go for a masters degree in Environmental.

 

[Twinkie]

Have you looked at the MIT Open Course Ware yet?

 

[SACPEengineer]

Hello revots
So what made you want to try Environmental? Since this is self-study, is there a particular specific area that interests you (air, water, waste, soil, energy)? Would you want to include you electrical background in it?
The following are books that I used previously in class, read, referenced and/or currently going through:

Boeker, E. and Grondelle, R. (1999). Environmental Physics. (2nd ed). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Crites, R. and Tchobanoglous, G. (1998). Small and Decentralized Wastewater Management Systems. Boston, Ma: WCB/McGraw-Hill.

Farber, D. and Findley, R. (2010). Environmental Law in a Nut Shell (8th ed.). St. Paul, MN: Thomas Reuters.

Manahan, S. (2001). Fundamentals of Environmental Chemistry (2nd ed). Boca Raton: Lewis Publishers.

Nazaroff, W. and Alvarez-Cohen, L. (2001). Environmental Engineering Science. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Perk, M. (2006). Soil and Water Contamination: From Molecular to Catchment Scale. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Roberson, J., Cassidy, J., and Chaudhry, M. (1998). Hydraulic Engineering. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Weiner, R. and Mathews, R. (2003). Environmental Engineering. (4th ed). New York: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Wright, D. A. and Welborn, P. (2002). Environmental Toxicology. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Vesilind, P., Morgan, S., and Heine, L. (2010). Introduction to Environmental Engineering. (3rd ed.) Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

I hope this helps.

 

[MartinLe]

You write Civil/Environmental Engineer. In environmental engineering there's I think basically to approaches, one is civil engineers with additional training in environmental/process stuff. The other is chemical or process (or even biotechnology) engineers with a specialisation in environmental technologies. You need to know if you actually want or need the civil-engineering part.
As someone from the latter camp (process engineer, only knowledge of civil engineering came after my degre via the job) I'd say there's lots of value in knowing civil engineering in the field.
On the other hand, if your degree is EE and you have a strong background in process engineering a company like mine would hire you at once: To engineer the control system you need to interface closely with the proces and project engineers, the more you understand them the better. EEs traditionally do part of the comissioning of plants, if you understand more about the process you can be highly useful here.

I assumed that you want to go into a similiar field as I work in (building waste to energy and biogas plants), if you look at other fields of environmental engineering my rant may be less useful to you. Also if you want to primarily learn civil engineering ...

 

[CELinOttawa]

I did three and a half years of Electrical Engineering and then switched to Civil... I completed the degree in a total of five years by doubling up course loads wherever possible and summer school.

You can switch, and honestly I would think that the change is too great for you to effectively do this yourself. I know when I went into my first materials class two and a half years removed from my general first year I was TOTALLY LOST.

With a dedicated mentor the self-training is likely to work and be possible, but since you're still in your undergrade I'd encourage you to follow my lead and switch majors.