High-rise and bridge projects - Master degree a must? 2

[Qshake]

I agree with Francesca in that if you're serious and want to get involved in some major structural work, a MS is mandatory for you and most likely by the firm you want to work for.

I am a big fan of let the workplace or market decide what the demand on education is. The companies are taking the risk, not the engineering societies. Risk is mitigated strongly by knowledge - the more you know the better you can minimize risky areas. Larger firms that work on major projects tend to hire MS candidates. Smaller firms that do routine municipality work can make do (and very well) with BSCE employees. So if you, as a business owner, can get by with the BSCE coursework for your employees, then you shouldn't be subject to hiring more expensive engineers. Of course there are exceptions in that some small firms are involoved in specialty work that requires MS or PHD.

Regards,
Qshake

Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.

 

[a2mfk]

For what its worth, the owners of my companies go as follow:
BS from a small college
BS from an average state university (they did buildings up to 30 stories in high wind areas)
Self employed with a BS from an average state university
Retired PHD professors, though non-engineers

All well-off businessman, except for that self-employed guy.

One of my go-to mentors from a previous company had a BS and an MBA, but he said the key in his career was a several year stint with a really good mentor.

I liked school and was a good student, but I am a firm believer in on the job training for structural engineers being they key to this profession. A Masters certainly won't hurt you, but don't be too disappointed if it is not the rocket ship for your career you may have hoped. I would work first if you can find a good job, and then decide what to do after that. You may not want to even do structural engineering.

I know plenty of young engineers who have recently gone to grad school basically because the job market was so bad...

Good luck!

 

[B16A2]

Getting a Masters straight out of your BS is far less worthwhile than getting a Masters after a few years of experience. You dont know what is and isn't important after your BS. You can always go back later on, and the work experience makes it more likely for you to get it fully funded.

 

[HuckleberryFinn]

IF you can get work experience. I came out of my BS in May of 09' and no one was even talking to undergraduate engineers, much less offering them positions (be it short term internship or full time positions). I had to basically go to work for free for a company to develop myself professionally so that I could remain competitive with engineers with years of experience who had been let go from their old firms.

If your coming out of your undergrad right the most important advice I could give you would be this: Make sure you can get a job after you graduate from your Master's program. You don't need to be a fortune teller but just ask a few of the Master's candidates who are graduating soon about their prospects and their classmates prospects as well. The answer you get will be telling about your own prospects after graduation.

There's nothing worse than spending all that money to get a Master's degree and then flipping burgers because thats the only job available. I've been fortunate enough to avoid that fate but several of my classmates from my Masters program have not (and these are not dumb/unmotivated people either).

 

[Lion06]

I have a highrise building under my belt (30 stories, if that qualifies as highrise) and I only have a BS. I'm currently in a grad program (I'm one of only a couple in the office without a MS), but I would have been given the project whether I was in the grad program or not. We also work on a lot of pretty prestigious projects with world-class architects. It's very rewarding (personally more than financially),

One thing I would say is that a MS is much more valuable to you after you have a couple years of experience. At that point you'll have a better idea of what's important, what you really need to pay attention to and what's just not worth staying up until 2 am to finish.

 

[slickdeals]

I agree with a2mfk. Nothing prepares you completely to become a structural engineer. Only real-life experience working on projects will make you a better engineer. You also need a good mentor who is willing to take the time. Structural engineering is as much an ART as it is a SCIENCE. You can learn all the SCIENCE in school, but unless you know the ART of structural engineering, you will never become a great structural engineer.

 

[abusementpark]

I have a highrise building under my belt (30 stories, if that qualifies as highrise) and I only have a BS.

Did you guys do a dynamic analysis for the lateral design?

 

[desnov74]

At least one PhD MINIMUM.

 

[desnov74]

My 2cents is even if you decide you need the MS, get some experience under the belt first. Get the EIT done if you haven't already. I wish I waited, I think of things I would like to explore in greater detail, and my thesis would be FAR more applicable to real world engineering.

 

[Ninjahedge]

It depends on your definition of "need".

You NEED it to be accepted by a company to do the work, but you really do not "need" it to do the design.

MOST of the design is the same as for a low rise. You have your gravity systems, vibration, deflection and serviceability. The only difference in high rise is that you also start getting things like built up shapes, mode shapes, wind tunnel analysis and other more complicated areas that would be easier to understand if you have a background in Dynamics (which many undergrad study programs do not include).

High rise concrete also includes things such as creep shortening and non-linear analysis (say tension fracturing of the concrete when bent in one direction under seismic load is different than in the other direction, so your mode shape is non-linear with a non-continuous point at 0).

So it is recommended that you get a Masters, but it is not truly needed.

Now, as for net acronyms. As for a Gen-X'er it is not that hard to understand terms such as "PPL" "OMG" "THX" "L8R" and others. These are just friendly colloquialisms that save time in a texting world.

Are they appropriate for professional discourse? No. No more than "like" was and is for my own generation (although that one is still living strong in Gen-Y).

Why so many are focusing on something that has absolutely nothing to do with the OT is beyond me.

Ironic that people are grousing about internet shorthand on an internet BBS.

 

[Lion06]

abusementpark-
We did not do a dynamic analysis for the lateral design for strength. We did have a wind-tunnel study and provided the wind-tunnel guys with frequencies/periods, mode-shapes, mass distributions, mass moments of inertia, etc. for him to give us accelerations due to wind at the highest occupied floor of the building.

We did some checks (for comparison) to see how close some spreadsheets we have are, and it was reasonably close.

I will say that our lateral system is minimally stressed (about 0.5 max at the base columns) and our drift is H/800 for a 50 year wind, and we were just squeaking by on accelerations.

 

[slickdeals]

@PA:
Was it a really slender building? I am surprised accelerations were controlling on a 30 story building.

 

[Lion06]

It wasn't terribly slender, but it was steel so it got a lower damping ratio than it would have if it were concrete (.02 compared to .03 for concrete - typical values).

Also the steel framed structure is lighter than concrete.

It was a torsional mode that was controlling the frequency and accelerations.

I guess to be fair I should qualify that the acceleration increased radially as you for out toward the corners of the building because of the torsional nature and there were small portions of each corner that were close, but the majority of the upper floor was ok.