Making the choice between Bridges and Buildings 4

[pittguy12]

This is less technical and more professional development in nature but I respect the people who contribute on this forum and therefore wanted to pitch the question to everyone.

What are some perspectives on choosing a career in bridges versus buildings?

What is interesting, when I pitch this question to friends, I usually get the same answer..."I work in _______ because it's the more innovative and creative of the two!". The bridge guys see building engineers as being ruled by the architects and with little chance to make the important decisions on a project. The building guys see bridges cramped within the confines of AASHTO and DOT's.

It's just an interesting situation to me and I as I think about the future for my own career, I am curious what a broader audience thinks about making this choice.

 

[ztengguy]

I think that designing structures such as buildings expose you to more different types of design. Usually bridges are just steel and concrete, and for the most part pretty prescriptive type designs.

 

[ATSE]

Pittguy,
The decision has much more to do with what you have patience for.
In places like California and New York, and most everywhere else, a lot of design decisions are political.
Simple projects can take literally years just to break ground.
The structural design has already been solved 1000 times over, and most of the time the bridge designer is simply following the Caltrans design manual.
And details like silt fences matter more than reinforcing steel around a penetration in a deck.
And most jurisdictions, the state dots, especially Caltrans, horde the work in-house (about 90%), so if you are a private bridge designer and the public union is strong (like everywhere), you'll starve.
This has nothing to do with how qualified or experienced you are.
Yes, working with architects is usually lousy work.
As a non-bridge structural engineer, I spend less than 10% of my time with architects, and that is intentional.

 

[paddingtongreen]

Let's make this about Bridge and Non-Bridge engineers. If you start as an NB, changing to be a B is difficult, B companies have an exalted opinion of the difficulty of the work and lack of ability of anyone not already trained in it. I don't know about the shift the other way, I have had a few switchers assigned to me over the years.

As an NB, you can get to work on refineries, power plants, infrastructure other than bridges, as well as commercial and residential buildings.

Yes I hate architects in general although there are some good ones, but I also love them, they create problems that need solutions and for solutions they turn to us.


Michael.
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

 

[pittguy12]

"Yes I hate architects in general although there are some good ones, but I also love them, they create problems that need solutions and for solutions they turn to us."


Well said.

Good feedback overall.

A couple of bridge guys were recently talking to me about how the best choice currently for structural guys is to go into bridges because transportation infrastructure is the only thing being funded right now. Pending the results of the next election, their concern was that private dollars may still be sparse for building projects but it at least appears that transportation is a popular enough topic to stay funded.

However, as others have mentioned here, building engineering skills are not limited to architectural applications but can extend into a vartiety of other areas as well.

 

[NFExp]

pittguy12

After college I worked at a small bridge firm for 1 year. I switched to a Structural building firm for the last 6 years. I have found that buildings are alot more interesting. With buildings I get to work with a variety of materials. Working with architects can be annoying at times but I agree that they create oppurtunities for creative designs. The bridges that I worked on early in my career were typical DOT bridges and did not allow for any creative engineering. I did not work on any big suspension bridges so I can't speak for that type of engineering.

 

[graybeach]

Bridge design involves a lot more than just steel and concrete. You can get into foundations, retaining walls, marine construction, drainage, life cycle cost analyses, type studies, community involvement, field inspections, constructibility analysis, construction staging, shoring, rehabilitation and life extension, complex geometry, vibration analysis, ship impact, utilities, etc. And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

It's fun a heck, and tt probably pays better too!

 

[Brad805]

How about financial services? oops, not an option I guess

Pros and cons to both. The big bridges seem like a lot of fun since they are very technical, but I can assure you the typical little ones are as boring as you can find. Buildings get tiresome too. I would pick the one that you can make the most so you can have a happy family life. My brother-in law said to me once, if work was intended to be fun the bosses would sell tickets instead of giving you a paycheck.

Brad

 

[bridgebuster]

graybeach said it very well. ATSE is correct that many decisions are political and it can take years to brak ground.

I find bridge rehab work very challenging. It's not for everybody. Sometimes not a lot of number crunching but trying to rebuild and upgrade a bridge while maintaing traffic is not always easy.

 

[bridgebuster]

I forgot to add that sometimes we get stuck with architects too.

 

[TLHS]

Industrial structures are kind of fun. No architects, people always wanting to do weird things like install equipment two floors up on a floor rated for occupancy or replace equipment with things that weigh twice as much. Sometimes you'll get to spend ridiculous amounts of money because it's cheaper to do something completely insane and entertaining instead of shutting down the process you're upgrading for two weeks (the "hey, let's replace the whole piece of equipment with two days of shut down by building a new one a few hundred feet away, cutting out the old one and trying to crane the new into the old spot back in place" style job)

On the other hand, you're going to design a thousand pipe supports and pump foundations.

 

[JAV72]

I've been doing buildings and industrial work for 16 yrs. Working with a good architect that respects your input is very rewarding...working with all the other architects is like self-inserting a bamboo catheter.
Industrial work can be pretty cool but only as good as the management of the facility, very bureaucratic.
Pick your client I guess.

 

[msquared48]

If there were no architects (notice I did not capitalize the term) we would have a lot less work.

Quit complaining.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[JAV72]

Msquared:"less work."

Less work versus not getting paid for the work we do...hmmm.

Maybe time for a career change.

 

[msquared48]

Complainer!

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[JAE]

Building Structural Engineer:
"Hey wow - that's a cool design Mr. Architect. Let me try to figure out how to realize all your dreams! Is that all the further you can challenge me? C'mon. You can do better. How about a 200 ft. cantilever that's only 10 inches thick?"

Bridge Structural Engineer:
"Give me my bridge project. Let me get a cup of coffee and fire up my calculator. Then leave me the h#!! alone for 4 months in my cubicle!"

 

[DWHA]

At my pervious job I spent about 80% of my time working on temporary construction structures. It was the best. It was hands on, problem solving. Worked hand in hand with the contractors, comming up with creative solutions for many different issues. Did things like shoring (some very very large) plans, temp retaining walls, analysis of bridges for temp construction loads, cofferdams.
Will never win an award for most innovative design, but the satisfaction of the contractor calling back a month later and saying that worked well, can we do something similiar on this project?

 

[pittguy12]

TLHS - that sounds very similar to what I am currently doing. It can be very satisfying and diverse, I agree.

DWHA - that was my first job out of school. It was awesome. I remember the satisfaction of working out a plan and then going to see it put up the next day by members of the crew. They would be certain to tell you when you screwed up (through many 4 letter words) but they also would express to you when something you did worked out well. I can remember solving calculations on the fly that would literally be put to the test later that day....unbelievably satisfying work with or without the awards.


I am faced with a decision of going into large building design or going to work for a bridge designer. Big choice for me. It's good to see the feedback coming in. It seems like it's all about what suits you personally!

 

[dhengr]

Why don’t you go into bridge building, then you would cover both bases?

 

[kieran1]

Why limit yourself, I try to design every type of structure, keeps me busy and intrested.

Kieran