Structural engineer career line 11

[Awab95]

Hi guys,I want to know what is the best time to do master degree in structure; before SE exam or after, also what is the best time to do MBA?

Edit: is the master degree worth it if I did SE exam,and is the MBA worth it?

 

[KootK]

Drifting further into the philosophical, I have some strong opinions about what an engineering education should ideally be:

1) I have little respect for the material design courses. All that can easily be learned on the job in much greater depth in my estimation.

2) In North America at least, I think that we're woefully deficient in mathematics and physics. In my opinion, the only thing that's ever hard about engineering theory is the math behind it. If you're right with your maths, the rest is child's play. Your average MSc nowadays is running FEM at will and does not understand the origins of a Jacobian matrix.

When I try to imagine where our next Timoshenko is going to come from, I have a hard time imagining that having anything to do with that person having taken Concrete III. My dream engineer would be well versed in mathematics, English, and Newtonian physics. Maybe a little logic and ethics around the margins. Basically just language: that of men and that of nature.

 

[KootK]

Oh, and for goodness sake, I'd like to see us get back to properly respecting engineering as a field characterized by apprenticeship. Nobody can get where they need to go in structural without some good mentoring. Trying to shift the burden of proper training to the universities is shortchanging everybody.

 

[skeletron]

I just wish that I swung the hammer for at least one summer instead of testing asphalt, which has absolutely zero connection to structural engineering.

 

[STrctPono]

The only benefit to a masters degree now days is because the bachelors degree teaches little of what you need to know.

I've heard senior Engineers make this argument before. Most of the time I shrug it off as typical ageism where the older generations like to tell junior engineers how bad their work ethic is and how much harder they had it when they were younger. But I'm starting to think that there is a group of older engineers out there that actually believe that current US based ABET accredited engineering schools are a joke and just handing out BS degrees and that their circa 1978 BS degree is the gold standard. Perhaps I am wrong and maybe you did take a significantly more rigorous structural engineering curriculum than I did.... When I was in school, here is a list of the core "structural" classes I took to get my BS degree.

Mechanics 1: Statics
Mechanics 2: Dynamics
Mechanics of Materials (with Lab)
Reinforced Concrete Design
Structural Steel Design
Masonry Design combined with Wood Design
Structural Analysis 1
Structural Analysis 2
Senior Level Capstone Design Class (Structure Based)

Likewise, for my MS coursework, I had the opportunity to take courses in the following:

Continuum Mechanics
Modern Theory of Structural Analysis
Finite Element Analysis
Structural Dynamics
Theory of Smart Structures (Deals with adjusting the stiffness and damping matrix of structures based on a real time base excitation)
Prestressed Concrete Design
Advanced Structural Steel Design
Advanced Reinforced Concrete Design
Not to mention that I was a Teaching Assistant for the undergraduate courses in Mechanics of Materials, Dynamics, and Reinforced Concrete Design so I got supercharged exposure to those classes again.)

My point being, I was able to essentially double my structural based coursework from my time in undergrad by earning a master's degree. So I would strongly disagree that it has little benefit. If the type of work that you do at your firm doesn't require the use of theory beyond an undergrad degree then that is merely reflective of the type of work that your office does, nothing more. But there are small size engineering firms that desire this additional level of education in their applicants. I never would have expected "outrageous" salary gains and I understood that even if I didn't receive a salary gain, I would at least get exposed to more exciting and challenging projects. However, if a company is in need of someone to run highfalutin dynamic analysis on their structures, that Engineer should be paid a salary commensurate with the work they are doing.

 

[r13]

...in need of someone to run highfalutin dynamic analysis on their structures, that Engineer should be paid a salary commensurate with the work they are doing.

Yes, "in need" is the key.

A recent Ph.D colleague of mine, who majored in structural dynamics from a highly respectable university, didn't survive the layoff. Nobody was surprised, because he constantly complained he was mis-treated for been placed to work with the people with lower degree, and was not paid adequately in according to his degree. The boss handed him the pink slip, and said; "Young man, there are too many better candidates wanted your position..." Arrogance kills one's chance.

 

[SWComposites]

Get the MBA when you are ready to be useless as an engineer.

 

[Aesur]

@STrctPono, what I am trying to say is work experience is greater/better than schooling. This comes from my own personal experience.

Let me give a little background of myself, I have a bachelors in civil engineering technology as my school didn't offer a civil engineering degree (at the time), however had similar courses to civil engineering degree paths. My college was mostly focused on the transportation and hydrology paths, with few of us going down the structural path, in my graduating class of around 30, I am the only one doing doing structural. I luckily had a few amazing teachers who had actually worked in the field and wasn't just a PhD with little to no real life engineering experience, this gave a far superior education in my opinion. The courses I had were very limited from a structural standpoint and in fact I didn't even have the opportunity to take concrete as it conflicted with steel design, however the steel design teacher got into more advanced analysis that are normally masters level, ie. stiffness matrices and the like. It is my opinion that with the exception of about 3 classes the rest were mostly a waste of time if you really want to practice structural engineering design. My current knowledge developed through my longing to learn, questioning things and searching for better ways to do something as well as a few good mentors.

I graduated in 2009 (I don't think this makes me a case of "ageism" yet) and have worked my ass off to get to where I am today, having started a structural engineering firm a year and a half ago with two partners and becoming a major player in our local market and successfully expanding into other states. I have worked on thousands of projects in the past 11 years ranging from the simple little projects to projects over 110 million dollars to construct using just about every material out there and up to around 18 stories tall. Had I gotten my masters degree I would most likely be 2 to 3 years behind where I am today based on what I have seen come from some "top" universities for structural engineering; in fact I have personally helped many engineers to learn what they were supposed to be learning in their masters programs based on knowledge I picked up from books, codes and questioning how thing work. I find the education system in the US majorly lacking when it comes to what you should know and put little thought into where someone went to school or what degree they have and base my decision on the person.

When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools. Many older engineers I have come across are tired of training so many new engineers because this field has lost itself, the fees are too low for the expected work, there is no recognition, it's a very high work stress environment with ever increasing complexity of codes (mostly written by PhD's who have no idea what it is like to actually design something - just look at the wind provision which are supposed to get even more complex in the 2022 release), and quicker timelines with something like 50 to 75% of engineers leaving this field in the first 5 years.

We can get as many degrees as we want, but that means little to nothing about knowing how to use that education and the attitude a person has in wanting to grow and learn. I have worked with all levels of engineers, from those without degrees who started as drafters and learned over time to PhD's. I have continually seen those engineers who had no degree or only a bachelors far outperform those with masters or PhD's and almost always at a cheaper salary (we are trying to change this and pay based on what the person can do rather than their education - still a work in progress). Every project I have seen at my previous employer that had a masters or PhD engineer working on it has been over budget by at least 150% (at billable rates), this doesn't give much confidence in their education. I wish I could say this is due to the education at one University, but it's not.

I know we are talking masters here, but I would love to see a PhD student with as many years experience in the education side of things as they wanted and little in working in the real world try to design a building, staying on budget, giving an optimized design and meeting the typical tight timelines.

My main point of all this is, structural engineering is not about the degree and more about the person wanting to do it and being willing to learn what they don't know, having the right attitude; and that is what I try to hire based on.

 

[Aesur]

Meant to add to the previous post that many of the masters and even PhD's I have seen apply are asking for salaries that a senior engineer and principal rarely even make. The universities seem to create an unrealistic expectation of salaries in this industry. If I recall correctly based on the yearly surveys, a structural engineer brings in less than 150k/year on average and this has to cover benefits, admin and other expenses of the more highly paid principals (marketers) and project managers.

 

[NorthCivil]

Aesur, not sure what market you are in, though assuming USA. If your firm is only billing out 150k per year per working engineer on staff, no wonder you're growing rapidly and picking up work in other states!

Assuming the engineer bills out 1800 hours per year, that's only a billing rate of 83$/hour. Even students in my last company were being billed at 100, fresh grads 125, mid level engineers 180, senior level guys 220... Etc etc

 

[Aesur]

NorthCivil, the market I'm in is very competitive with lots of firms outsourcing to other countries, we can only dream of those higher rates. We are actually billing out higher than that and we adjust our fees based on the specific market/type of work to keep from undercutting others, while still being competitive. We don't want to be the reason other engineers suffer or lose their good fees in the higher fee markets. That number is the average per a survey across the USA last year. I will see if I can find that survey again to post it. Part of why we are expanding to other states is to get access to better markets, this one is too saturated, but we had many connections here so we started here. Additionally, once factoring in vacation, sick time holidays, training, etc.. the typical billed hours is closer to around 1500 hours max, and this doesn't account for overtime nor going over on projects with newer engineers. You cannot just get a higher fee because you are using a project to train a newer engineer.

 

[Aesur]

NorthCivil, I should probably add that based on the numbers you posted you have to keep in mind that mid level engineers are probably 65% billable and senior level probably closer to 40 to 50% as they are typically the project managers and principals responsible for obtaining work, few senior level guys actually bill out at those rates because almost every project would exceed the budget significantly at those rates. For most companies utilization rates are in the 55 to 60% range because of this. The report is the Deltek A&E report, per the 2020 report net revenue per employee is 144k, the report can be viewed at: Link.

 

[dauwerda]

When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools.

Now I'm curious what others have to say about this, because this is not my experience at all. If I had left school without these basics I would be asking for my money back.

 

[r13]

As a research orientated university, my school offers very little practical design classes other than standard steel, concrete...etc. No wood, nor masonry, so I can only claim I am a civil engineering graduate with concentration in structural. I learnt everything pretty much on the job, including diaphragm and shear wall.

 

[RWW0002]

When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools.

Now I'm curious what others have to say about this, because this is not my experience at all. If I had left school without these basics I would be asking for my money back.

I have to strongly disagree with this sentiment. While I did have some exposure to ASCE7 in both undergraduate level and graduate level classes, I generally audited those classes. Why would you waste $$ in college to learn something as easy as ASCE-7. While an education should not be completely divorced from the practical design world (where we get loads, how a design actually progresses) I could teach a new engineer to apply ASCE-7 in a matter of days, why would you want to waste good money in graduate level education on something you can easily teach yourself? I would much rather get some heavy background that, while you may use it a bit less often, it is way harder to teach yourself and is much less likely to find a mentor that is willing/able to teach it.

Why would we expect schools to pump out engineers ready to fully design without mentoring? I would rather schools have a harder course load to "weed out the field" a bit and get an engineer that is capable of learning tough subjects and that has some good background theory. I can quickly train them to do the easy parts..

 

[mtu1972]

I agree with many of the statement posted above. My background is BSCE in 1972. Real old school; slide rules, no calculators. Three of us, out of 109 Civil’s, chose the structural option. All 109 had the basic required structural classes. Sr. year I had all of the advanced structural classes.

Poor job market kept me in school for a Master’s degree. I chose the non-thesis option which required an individual project. Got introduced to computer programming classes with main-frame and punch cards. After five terms, I had completed all the course work, but my FEM project got stymied when MTU brought in a new main-frame and my punch cards weren’t working. Even the computer nerds could not help me as they were overwhelmed by their own issues. Decided to leave and start working.

At first job I realized that we were not taught very much about building terminology, such as purlin, girt, etc. Nor were we taught anything about the Building Codes. Fortunately I had two great mentors, the owner and the senior engineer. They gave me specific tasks, like design the beams on this level, next level, design the columns, design the footings, etc. They reviewed my work before moving onto the next task. Check these shop drawings. Probably six to eight months before I was allowed to do a building on my own.

First annual review showed me that I was costing the company money as even at my low pay rate, I was taking too much time getting tasks done. Our projects were typically fixed cost working for Architects.

Throughout my 40 year career my advanced structural classes gave me more insight into the entire design process than any of my coworkers. Only one other had a MS degree and I never knew that until he started his own company and I saw his credentials on his website.

Because it bothered me that I never finished my Master’s degree, I began a distance learning program in 2000 and got my MS in 2006. The benefit was that it made me become computer literate. Many of the classes were modern versions of classes I took back in the 70’s.

Don’t know that I ever worked with or for anyone with an MBA, so no comments wrt that.


gjc

 

[KootK]

Now I'm curious what others have to say about this, because this is not my experience at all. If I had left school without these basics I would be asking for my money back.

With regard to diaphragms and shear walls, my experience definitely matches Aesurs:

1) I left my undergrad having heard nothing whatsoever of shear walls or diaphramgs.

2) I could easily have left my MSc without hearing of diaphragms or shear walls if I hadn't chosen to take upper level building dynamics and seismic courses.

3) Most of the new grads that I've mentored have been shocked to learn that a building's "lateral size" is usually a fraction of its overall footprint which is obviously a large gap in understanding regarding lateral. I didn't mock them for this then and I don't now. It is a weird thing that folks just don't know until they're properly initiated.

Some of this may well be a function of when I did my undergrad. Even back in 2000, lateral concerns weren't getting anywhere near the amount of airtime that they do now. Back then, I had to dig hard to find any books that dealt with diaphragms meaningfully. Even today, detailed exposes are quite rare and pretty dominated by NEHRP stuff.

@RWW0002: I agree with your latest wholeheartedly. Similar sentiments informed my earlier comments regarding curriculum. Formal education is about learning how to think and mastering deeply fundamental subject matter. If we're to have folks doing cookbook design stuff in grad school, we might as well teach them to change their own oil there too.

 

[dauwerda]

I guess I wasn't portraying my thoughts well. I was not trying to imply that I had any classes that focused on those things, but they certainly weren't ignored either. i.e. I certainly learned what they were and what their function was.
How can you take a structural analysis class and complete it without knowing (learning) the full load paths of getting lateral forces to the ground, which typically includes shear walls and diaphragms. Having 1 day of a class to go through a few typical designs of how loads are transferred through diaphragms and shear walls doesn't sound like a waste to me.
As for Asce 7, no not a second of class time was wasted going through it - we were expected to be able to do that on our own, we were exposed to it and given homework or projects where the first step was determining loads per ASCE.

I also was fortunate enough to grow up in the construction industry, pouring concrete and building residential and commercial buildings since I was 12. That probably did fill in some of the practical gaps that were in school (like the terminology mentioned above), but because I had ready been exposed to it, didn't realize it wasn't really covered in the curriculum.

And now, thinking back, the 3 main professors in the structural department at my school had all been practicing engineers at one point as well, so maybe they did cover a little more practical design than most programs. (and by cover I really mean point out how what we were learning was used in industry).

 

[STrctPono]

I graduated in 2009 (I don't think this makes me a case of "ageism" yet)

We are pretty much the same age then so I will concede my earlier remarks.

what I am trying to say is work experience is greater/better than schooling. This comes from my own personal experience.

I agree that the practical experience you learn on the job is far more useful and that the growth is much more rapid... but the experiences are different. School is for theory and work is to learn the practical side of design. Most graduates come out of school with a lot of knowledge but no ability to apply that knowledge in a practical sense. The theory is all jumbled in their brain. They have the pieces of the puzzle but don't know how to put it together. That is what on the job training is for. To paint a clearer picture about how you can break complicated problems down into simple solutions and create something through the design process. The problem is that your arguments seem to have frustration with new Engineers not knowing how to design elements of a building straight out of school. Not all of us Structural Engineers design buildings. I've touched one commercial building in my entire career. The theory that you learn in school needs to be able to be applied to all industries, not just buildings.

When is the last time you saw a new grad with a masters or bachelors know what a diaphragm was, what a shear wall was, how to even determine design loads from ASCE7? This is typically taught on the job, not in the schools, however this is what should be taught in the schools.

I will admit that I did not know what these were after having received my BS but I sure as hell knew what they were after having received my MS and I had a pretty good idea of how to trace the loads through them with only an elementary understanding of how to actually design them. There was time in my Master's program to dive into this upper level course work that was not available in undergrad. Maybe the West coast schools just focus on this type of stuff more.... I don't know.

Many older engineers I have come across are tired of training so many new engineers because this field has lost itself, the fees are too low for the expected work, there is no recognition, it's a very high work stress environment with ever increasing complexity of codes

It baffles me that you would expect not to have to train new Engineers. That is where we are at an impasse. What other professional career can claim that their freshly hired graduates are able to manage their own jobs, require no training, and make a profit. That's ludicrous! There is way too much breadth of knowledge in this field to expect schooling to handle all of it. School is for theory and on-the job work training is for practical knowledge. Would you rather spend the time teaching a junior Engineer the theory behind Mindlin-Reissner plate theory or how to practically layout the columns in a mixed-use building. I agree with you that the fees are too low for many Engineers and the job is way too stressful with no recognition but not much we can do about that since there is a perception of Engineers in the Western world that cannot be shaken at this point.

We can get as many degrees as we want, but that means little to nothing about knowing how to use that education and the attitude a person has in wanting to grow and learn. I have worked with all levels of engineers, from those without degrees who started as drafters and learned over time to PhD's. I have continually seen those engineers who had no degree or only a bachelors far outperform those with masters or PhD's and almost always at a cheaper salary

Of course! No one ever said that education is a substitute for a person's character but your drafter with zero formal higher level education is going to have a real quick ceiling in terms of abilities vs the PhD hire. If you disagree, then I again assert that perhaps this is an indication of the type of design work you perform. No judgement, but if my competition in your office is someone with no formal education beyond High School then that is not a type of job I will find alluring. Couple that with low pay and I am not going to stay long.

I know we are talking masters here, but I would love to see a PhD student with as many years experience in the education side of things as they wanted and little in working in the real world try to design a building, staying on budget, giving an optimized design and meeting the typical tight timelines.

I couldn't have designed myself a manhole coming out of undergrad but that is meaningless. With a MS and proper mentorship from senior Engineers I am designing very exciting and difficult structures. But I never would have been able to get to where I am at without my theoretical education.

My main point of all this is, structural engineering is not about the degree and more about the person wanting to do it and being willing to learn what they don't know, having the right attitude; and that is what I try to hire based on.

This applies to every profession and career in life, not just Structural Engineering.

BTW, It looks like you are in AZ. I am from AZ but left in 2009 after my BS due to the horrible job market for Structural Engineers.

 

[Aesur]

Why would we expect schools to pump out engineers ready to fully design without mentoring? I would rather schools have a harder course load to "weed out the field" a bit and get an engineer that is capable of learning tough subjects and that has some good background theory. I can quickly train them to do the easy parts..

I would expect that a person coming out of school should have a basic understanding of loads and load paths, maybe they don't know the terminology, but they should at a minimum understand the concepts behind how a structure works. Far too many times I have seen engineers that had no concept of understanding load paths, especially lateral load paths.

I could teach a new engineer to apply ASCE-7 in a matter of days, why would you want to waste good money in graduate level education on something you can easily teach yourself?

You say you could teach a new engineer ASCE7 in a matter of days, I ask how many times you have done this? I ask because I have taught numerous engineers parts of ASCE7 but it never takes just a few days. The code has just too much information in it to teach effectively how to use it in just a few days, especially the wind and seismic chapters. If you work for a larger company, which are few and far between in the industry, then maybe your company can afford to designate a full time mentor who's job is just to teach, however for small and medium size employers this just isn't possible. The largest company I have worked for had roughly 25 engineers at their largest and even then they couldn't afford to have a senior level guy spending all this time training the new guy. (at least that is what was stated constantly about training not happening)

Training on the job is expected and necessary; I have enjoyed providing that training to numerous engineers, most of which I no longer work with but still offer advice and training to when they need it. I find the issue is more that colleges don't teach ideas like load paths, instead teaching how to design one material or simple member designs, but not the bigger concepts. Would it be that bad if there was a course teaching the basic parts of a structure and how they interact with each other?

At the higher level education, I tend to see engineers focusing on one aspect of engineering, be it wind loading, seismic loading, dynamic effects on buildings, post tension concrete design, etc.. While it is great to have this knowledge, having it and knowing how to use it are two different things. I keep thinking back to an engineer who had a PhD and 6 years experience and was a self proclaimed expert in post tension design. He was responsible for the PT design of a podium slab and was using RAM Concept. His lack of knowledge showed early on when backchecking his models, he had no concept of load paths and couldn't comprehend that you cannot just add an "imaginary wall" because the slab didn't work in one location and he needed it there to make the model work, claiming to be done with the design. After a few more weeks of him working on the project with his team, I was asked again to review their work and again the exact same issues were found and every time management would reinforce the idea that he is a PhD and knows more than everyone else in the company because of that. Eventually another principal was bought in and the entire project had to be redesigned from scratch and was already months behind schedule. In this instance there were many more issues regarding how that project went, from lack of oversight from the PM to people cutting corners because they were completely lost and afraid to ask for help, but this PhD's "knowledge" seemed to prevent him from being able to comprehend how a complete structure works, when you tried to walk him through a load path, something that should take less than an hour would take days. I wish this was just a one off person who is better suited for theoretical work, however this was true with 4 or the 5 PhD's I have had the pleasure to work with in the past and 3 of the 5 masters, you can probably see how this would leave a sour taste in my mouth. I would hire a PhD or Masters, but I would have a higher expectation of their abilities and would scrutinize their abilities and work much more than someone without a PhD or masters.

The problem is that your arguments seem to have frustration with new Engineers not knowing how to design elements of a building straight out of school. Not all of us Structural Engineers design buildings. I've touched one commercial building in my entire career. The theory that you learn in school needs to be able to be applied to all industries, not just buildings.

This is correct, I have an issue with engineers not having the ability to understand load paths straight out of school. I believe if you give most engineers out of school a beam to design and provide them the needed information that they could do that, but not all could understand the basics of how a structure works. I understand that not all structural engineers work on buildings, however building and bridge design appear to be the biggest areas of structural engineers and I would expect at least some knowledge of those. Out of curiosity, what area of structural engineering do you do? I ask because I have mainly focused only on buildings, solar and a handful of bridges, but have been thinking heavily about getting into engineering software development.

Maybe the West coast schools just focus on this type of stuff more.... I don't know.

I am not sure of the differences from the East and West coast schools, I myself graduated from an East coast school which offered a few courses in bachelors that I have only seen in masters programs on the West coast, however I cannot say if this is the norm as it's comparing two schools that I am familiar with. The West coast school in my experience didn't provide a working knowledge of the ASCE7, shear walls, load paths, etc.. based on the handfull of masters I have worked with from a specific school. I wish I could say I have worked with masters from the East coast, but to date I have not encountered any having moved to the West Coast shortly after graduation.

What other professional career can claim that their freshly hired graduates are able to manage their own jobs, require no training, and make a profit.

I agree that a fresh engineer would not be profitable for a few months, the industry aims to minimize this at around 2 to 3 months max, however I have been seeing these new grads not be profitable for the first few years, and statistically speaking based on my experiences, the less profitable ones were those with higher education beyond a bachelors, because they struggled to put theory into practice. There is a time and place for the higher education and theoretical design, but it rarely is in the practice of designing buildings, bridges and the likes.

It baffles me that you would expect not to have to train new Engineers.

I don't believe I ever said I believe you shouldn't have to train new engineers, there is always something new to learn; however I don't believe you should have to train the very basics from scratch, schools should have provided at least some aspect of loads and load paths.

No one ever said that education is a substitute for a person's character but your drafter with zero formal higher level education is going to have a real quick ceiling in terms of abilities vs the PhD hire.

I disagree with you here, this depends on the person, not everyone needs a college degree to learn something. In this case, the engineer I am referring to is an amazing building engineer and is superior to many engineers with higher education when it comes to building design. I agree that this depends on the type of work done, as I have said, I focus mostly on buildings.

Couple that with low pay and I am not going to stay long.

I am very curious what you do as I don't see many avenues for building designers to be paid much higher than most are; especially considering the normal business structure of higher paid people marking and bringing in the work, but being to expensive to work on the project thereby requiring many lower paid minions to do the work generating the income to cover the higher ups. If you have figured out how to be more profitable when designing buildings, please share this info, we would all owe you! I do recognize that my market is very much lacking in exciting new projects, hence the expansion into other more exciting and faster growth markets.

BTW, It looks like you are in AZ. I am from AZ but left in 2009 after my BS due to the horrible job market for Structural Engineers.

Yes, I am in AZ for the time being, I moved here from the East coast a few years after college. The market for structural engineers is still horrible here, but improving. Unfortunately there are a lot of one man shops around that drive the prices down and many developers aren't pushing the limits of design with new exciting structures - this may be a good thing (for now) because developers recognize the amount of competition here and have no issue playing one engineer against another to drive the prices as low as possible while expecting you to provide the most optimized design possible.

I apologize for my long response, didn't have a chance to jump on earlier today to respond periodically, so you all get to read a book!

 

[KootK]

Regarding what is and isn't taught in college, and what future trends are, I feel that one need look no further tham how popular and classic structural analysis text books have been set up. Those two things tend to mirror one another. I've got pretty much all of the classic structural analysis texts. You'll hardly find mention of shear walls or diaphragms anywhere in those references at all. And so went the structural analysis courses of the day.

For some time now, I've been thinking that the world really needs some structural engineering texts that integrate our modern focusses on:

1) Lateral systems and;

2) Computational modelling.

3) A real need for approximate methods to verify computational modelling.

So I've been pleasantly surprised to see the titles and content of recent structural analysis books start to bend in this direction. From a marketing perspective, I suspect that the authors recognize this same need and are moving to fill it. Franky, I still feel that much more is needed on #2 but the pivot is clear.

I actually like how classic structural analysis texts and courses have been structured: largely focusing on the general principles and leaving the specific applications for other books, courses, and the real world. What I think is needed is probably an entirely separate course, and possibly separate books, on How Buildings Work and How to Design Them With Computational Modelling Tools and Check the Results. Same for bridges, maybe integrated. Tell me budget conscious employers wouldn't be looking out for that on transcripts??