Civil eginnering advice ...

awhir

Hey,

Is there anyone out there on boards.ie who is doing civil enginnering in NUIG, or has done it recently?

I would love to hear your insights into the course. Its currently in my cao number 1 spot as i love construction studies and i also enjoy physics .Im just wondering if anyone could give me some insight on:

the hours ?
whats the course about ?
do you enjoy it ?
difficulty level of the maths ?
and loads of other questions but i dont know what to ask :P

Any contributions would be greatly appreciated!

andrew

ron-burgandy

the hours ?
About 35 hours altogether in 1st year I seem to remember

whats the course about ?
1st Year is pretty much the same as the other engineering courses i.e maths, chemistry, physics, maths physics, a bit of computer programming. You also do a module in Surveying which is Civil-specific.

2nd year is a bit more specialized, modules in Hydraulics (study of fluid flow), Building, Strength of Materials.

do you enjoy it ?
Yeah it's good, can be challenging at times

difficulty level of the maths ?
Fairly high standard of Maths. If you get the entry requirement (C3 in honours methinks) you should be able to cope.

f1dan

awhir wrote: »

Hey,

Is there anyone out there on boards.ie who is doing civil enginnering in NUIG, or has done it recently?

I would love to hear your insights into the course. Its currently in my cao number 1 spot as i love construction studies and i also enjoy physics .Im just wondering if anyone could give me some insight on:

the hours ?
whats the course about ?
do you enjoy it ?
difficulty level of the maths ?
and loads of other questions but i dont know what to ask :P

Any contributions would be greatly appreciated!

andrew

I'm just finishing first year now.

Hours: If you go to all the lectures and tutorials you're looking at about 30 hours a week but there aren't many homework assignments to be done so your evenings are generally free

Course: For first year the course is very science orientated with lots of emphasis on chemistry. There's a semester of physics and two semesters of mathematical physics which is like leaving cert applied maths. Then there's introductory courses in surveying, fundamentals of civil engineering and computing along with graphics. Of course, there's plenty of maths with the emphasis there on calculus. It's not too hard as long as you go to the lectures and tutorials.

Enjoyment: The lack of actual engineering subjects is fairly annoying, especially when the students in UL are building model bridges on national television. You just have to hang tough and wait for the really interesting stuff in second year. As for the social side, you'll find it hard to beat the civils. You'll meet loads of people through the labs and and the surveying fieldwork.

The exams aren't too hard either;)

Feel free to ask any more questions.

pmg58

Just finishing Final Year now, first two years are described as the engineering science years, where you build up a background of knowledge. Final two years are the engineering design years, where the approach becomes quite a bit different (and harder!). You'll find yourself having to figure things out for yourself a lot more rather than being told how to do it, that kind of thing.

I do enjoy it, couldn't really see myself doing anything else to be honest, but I suppose it really depends on your interests.

Hours...not too bad in the first two years, but after that you have to spend a lot of your own time working on assignments, coming up to the end of a semester can be particularly tough.

The maths can be tough enough, but if you get the Honours in LC maths you'll probably be able to handle it.

Others have listed the subjects done in response to your question on what the course is about...lists of these from each year are easily available from the website as are timetables. I think it might be more accurate to say that the course is about developing your skills to be able to solve problems, particularly in the area of Civil Engineering but they can also be applied to many other areas. In other words, the course wont actually train you to do the job of an engineer, because these jobs can be so diverse, but it will train you to be able to learn how to do the job...if that makes sense.

Exams are pretty easy in the first two years but they get a lot harder after that.

Link to timetables: http://www.nuigalway.ie/faculties_departments/civil_engineering/timetables.html
NB some subjects, especially in final year are optional, so the timetables are really not as full as they seem at first.

Link to subjects: http://www.nuigalway.ie/civileng/courses/degree/be.html

Its very strongly rumoured however that the department are planning on removing the choices that final years have in the very near future, something i very definitely disagree with.

Any other questions, ask away....

witnessmenow

Sorry for stating the obvious, but you also have to consider whether this is the best time to be going into Civil Engineering? Some people might claim its the best time, but thats presuming that economic climate will have turned around in the next 4 years. Its not a great time to be any graduate at the moment, but times seem to be particularly tough on Civils

In third year all Engineers do 6 months of work placement, companies are organised by the college and the students apply and get interviewed. Last year (this years 4th years), if im not mistaken, all Civils got placed (or at least a vast majority), this year the majority did not get placed.

On the other hand, while all Electronic and Electronic and Computer Engineers got placed this year there is a lot less off them. Also, so far, 0 of its potential graduates have relative jobs lined up, with only 4-5 being in any stage of a job application. I dont believe any IT potential grads have jobs either. And there is ment to be a shortage of IT graduates :rolleyes: , they obvioulsy arent looking very hard :pac:


Good luck!

awhir

Thanks for the replys , really appreciate it .The hours seem quite steep in 1st year the one thing i was fearing ! :P.Do you have to attened all lectures ? like would you be completely lost if you missed afew ? How many were in the course this year does anyone know ? whats the chemistry like ?, never really liked it so could suffer in 1st and 2nd year ? .

in 3rd year what you u specialise in ? what kind of areas is there in civil engineering ?

cheers
andrew

My number 1 spot in my Cao is between this or IT and im not sure on what to pick.Civil does look very interesting , I am doing construction studies and physics and i love both subjects .

pmg58

Wouldn't worry about the hours, they're not that much! Missing lectures: very few lecturers take attendance, whether or not you find it hard to catch up is really up to you. To be honest, i'd say i've attended less than 40% of my lectures over the 4 years, but i'm particularly bad at getting up in the morning!

Numbers: currently about 100 in 4th year, 120 in 3rd year. Not sure about 1st and 2nd year but i'll try to find out. In the final two years, Civil and Environmental classes take most subjects together, with a handful of subjects being taken by other engineering classes. A lot more subjects are taken together with other classes in 2nd year and especially 1st where most courses are very similar. After 1st year, a large proportion of the 1st year Undenominated class generally choose Civil, so the class gets a lot bigger in 2nd year.

Chemistry: I did Undenominated in 1st year, we only did Chemistry for 1 semester, civils do it for both. Ours was easy enough, its harder for the civils, since its over the whole year but still nowhere near impossible. No chemistry after 1st year.

Theres no specialisation in 3rd year, everyone does the same subjects. There is currently specialisation in 4th year to a certain extent in that you pick 21 credits out of 60 from a list but you dont stick to a certain area or anything, just pick what you want HOWEVER I really wouldnt rely on this choice remaining much longer, as far as I know from next year on there will be no choice.

Civil Engineering can be divided into a number of broad areas, with structural, environmental, highway & traffic, geotechnical being the main ones. Subjects from all areas are covered during the course along with a lot of more general subjects. There isn't really a lot of information on this on the NUIG website, but maybe google or wikipedia can give you an idea of whats involved. If you're still unsure, let me know and i'll describe each of them for you.

Witnessmenow makes a good point, Civil Engineering is very hard to get a job in at the moment, but I can't imagine it'll be this bad within 4 years, something you'll have to think about though.

Have you considered entering undenominated engineering? It'll give you a (small!) taste of whats involved in most of the courses in the College of Engineering and you dont have to choose which area to specialise in until the end of first year. You can choose from every course in the College of Engineering EXCEPT for IT, Project and Construction Management and Engineering Innovation-Electronic. I'm not sure about the Energy Systems Engineering Degree thats been announced recently either.

pmg58

Ok numbers for first and second year:
75 first years in Civil
135 in Civil + Environmental + Project Management
I can't be bothered spending any more time searching for a breakdown of the 2nd year numbers, but I'd say the Civil figure would be around 100 or more, as I think Environmental classes are usually around 20 or less, not sure about Project Management but I'd say 10, maybe 15 max.

maddog009

Do you know much about the UL civil engineering course f1dan?

The bridges they build in 1st year seem interesting - saw some photos here - http://ulcivilengineering.blogspot.com/

Puma89

You will have more hours than most other courses but its not all that bad.

1st year you do a good bit of Maths and sciences etc.. but the standard is pretty much the same as the LC. 2nd year gets a bit more intresting with the likes of Strengths and hydraulics. Dont get into a habit of missing lectures in 2nd year as it will cost you especially in the winter exams.

Just finished 3rd year, and it was definitley the most intresting so far. Again not missing too many lectures is the key. Im on PEP at the moment, and it was pretty hard getting placement, lots of people didnt get any and ending up staying in college for 7 weeks doing projects.

Im enjoying it so far, NUIG is a pretty cool college with lots to do. My advice is to join a few clubs as it is a great way to meet people. Hope this helps