Civil Engineering in the 1980s: Professional Career or just a Pretty Good Job?

Abstract

Is civil engineering a professional career or just a pretty good job? The golden era of civil engineering stretched roughly from the 1850s to the 1950s, when civil engineers were credited with many large public works projects and technological advances. With the change in public philosophy about engineering and technology starting around the era of the atomic bomb, the engineer became the identifiable party who could be blamed for all manner of supposed evils resulting from technology. Only unanticipated large‐scale changes in public perception of the value of the engineer and technology can restore the prestige and economic rewards of the civil engineer of the golden era.