Hi everyone,

I'm a first-year Computer Science (AI/ML) student from India. I'm trying to learn how to solve real-world infrastructure problems, and I'd really appreciate honest feedback from people with experience in civil engineering, drainage systems, construction, urban planning, environmental engineering, or anyone familiar with stormwater management.

The Problem:

Many Indian cities experience severe waterlogging during the monsoon because storm drains become overloaded or clogged. This causes traffic congestion, road damage, vehicle breakdowns, and safety issues.

My Concept:

I'm exploring an idea called Smart StormVault AI.

The idea is to install underground storage chambers at flood-prone locations. When drains become overloaded, these chambers would temporarily store excess rainwater instead of letting it accumulate on the road.

Low-cost water level and flow sensors would send data to a centralized control system, which would determine the best time to gradually release the stored water back into the drainage network once capacity becomes available.

I'm also exploring whether these chambers could integrate with rainwater harvesting or groundwater recharge where appropriate.

I'm not trying to prove I'm right.

I'm trying to find out why this wouldn't work.

Some questions I have:

1. Is this technically feasible?

2. What would be the biggest engineering challenge?

3. Would maintenance become a nightmare?

4. Is there already an existing solution that does this better?

4. If you worked for a municipality, would you ever consider installing something like this? Why or why not?

5. What am I overlooking?

Please don't hesitate to be critical. If this is a bad idea, I'd rather know now than after spending months developing it.

Thank you!

Hello Everyone.

I wanted to ask everyone for their advice and perspective because this was something I wasn't expecting to happen.

Back in November, I accepted this offer for a summer internship in this firm for one of their offices in an Illinois County. This was going to be my third internship before I graduate by the end of this year. When summer arrives, I'm ecstatic and excited to start the internship and everything seemed normal at first. I was getting a long with the engineers in the office and I was learning a lot from them and enjoying my time and experience with them.

In my previous internships and for a job in my community college before, during work I was allowed to use ear buds when working on tasks such as something on the computer or helping organize something in the workplace. On my first week in this third internship, I asked if I was allowed to use earbuds when working on training modules before I can start doing real fieldwork or assignments and one of the engineers said yes I can .To me, it felt like my previous internship experiences prior when I used earbuds for office work or for field assignments. But despite that, I still got my work done and I was ready to learn and correct any mistakes I made.

When I use my earbuds during work, I usually had one earbud in and the other ear open so I can hear and listen in case I'm needed to work something else. It wasn't until my third week, I was told by one of the engineers in the office he wanted to have a talk with me near the end of my shift. He then told me to be mindful of my earbuds but I didn't mean any offense or whatsoever using them. After he told me that, the next day, I didn't have them on at all. While waiting for more work to arrive for me to work on, I was told to look into these power point presentations about different sections in municipality engineering and I asked if I could use earbuds while note taking and I was told "no, put yourself in the engineers shoes". I got my assignments and work for that day done.

Then the next day, I was called into the office by the office manager and she told me "You're a bright and kind young man but this isn't working out" and given the tone, I asked her if I was being fired and she gave me a nod. I asked her what the reason was and she said "Its the earbud's and we need someone who we can trust" even though a week before one of the engineers told me they trust me when I was working on an assignment for them. I thanked the engineers present in the office for their time while I was there and they walked with me to my car to collect the equipment they let me borrow and for me to use for field assignments. I asked what caused it and one of them replied "It's not just one thing. A lot of things and some people aren't cut out to work in this industry".

I found this whole situation odd as I'm always open to any feedback or advice and if there is an issue, I was willing to change or correct what I was doing wrong. I wasn't given a warning or a sit down regarding my performance and that talk the engineer gave me felt more like a nudge than a warning.

I was interning for the municipality sector and later on I saw in the office I got let go from, they had an opening for a municipal engineer. It honestly stung seeing that. I wanted to ask everyone for their perspective and any advice they can give.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

I’m a civil engineering student in Australia and I recently found an unpaid internship with a small construction company.

My first day is coming up, and the boss sent me an architectural drawing with brick set-out and wall dimensions. He told me that I would be laying bricks based on the drawing.

I’m happy to get hands-on site experience and I understand that practical construction knowledge can be useful for a future site engineer. However, I’m not sure whether actually laying bricks is normal or useful experience for a civil engineering intern, especially since the internship is unpaid.

Would you consider this valuable site experience, or am I basically being used as free labour?

I’d appreciate opinions from site engineers, project engineers, and people who started their careers in construction.

Is there a need a for Water Tower Map & 3D digital twin for Municipalities. I’m a GIS analyst and Drone Pilot and want to branch out into a new area.

Could you see a municipal team wanting a digital twin of all their water tower assets?

I have a few specific details/ ideas to make it custom for each tower/ location but that’s the general idea.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to ask about your experiences with the hiring process after a final interview.

I had my final technical interview for a graduate engineering position around two months ago, and I still haven’t received a final result. I followed up about a month ago, and HR replied that they were still reviewing the interview results and would provide an update once feedback became available. Since then, I haven’t heard anything.

For those who’ve been in a similar situation, how long did it take before you received a final decision? Have any of you waited this long and still ended up receiving an offer?

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a new job and I was hoping I could get some eyes on my resume. I've only had one job in the field so I was wondering if this looks okay or if I should break up my resume into experience and select projects sections. Appreciate the help

https://preview.redd.it/ui0n0hfmxhbh1.png?width=1700&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbf596b30dcefc083fdcfdabbeb9e57463d27b09

I run a 3 person, now 2, engineering firm in south Texas. I hired a 25 year old EIT to run a division and I paid him 70k, free healthcare, company truck, and 10% net profits of his division.

At first, he came in with a lot of energy. He was excited to work but not focused. I eventually got him to focus but his work was still sloppy. I hired him with the intention that he would grow the department and he would be motivated by his profit sharing incentive.

However, he only would perform PM duties and still was not without errors. 3 months later (today), I’m kind of ripping into him that he isn’t doing enough and he tells me that he isn’t motivated anymore and that he doesn’t want to put out anymore.

So I fired him… in EOS terms he was the right person (good character, generally knows the business) just wrong seat. He was a PM not a division leader.

I guess the morale of the story is not to hire people for roles they aren’t ready for. But what do you think? Was I asking too much of him? Was my expectation of ambition too high?

As a recent civil engineering graduate with multiple offers, which would be the best industry to enter at the moment:

- Transmission & Distribution

- Nuclear

- Oil & Gas

- Offshore

I am not a fan of 'traditional' civil engineering so applied for roles in these industries and am fortunate enough to be in a position where I have multiple offers. What industry is likely to be most in demand? Is there a best? or do they all have merit in their own right.

***For context this is in the UK

Thanks in advance!

I’m curious how you narrow down candidate well locations before drilling. What information do you rely on the most, and what’s the most time-consuming part of the process? If you could wave a magic wand and improve one part of site selection, what would it be?

Graduated with a BS in civil engineering and I have mostly materials field and lab testing for around 2 years, along with inspection on state roads and bridges. Not an EIT yet. I got an interview with a local firm for a project engineer position - what's your experience with being one and what can I possibly expect? Their job description has the responsibilities, but what is the expectation vs reality of being a project engineer? Thank you

I am in my third year of civil engineering and got f’d over by my advisor. I wanted to get my focus in structural for civil engineering but my advisor made me take a wrong class last semester. Now I’m in a situation where if my focus is in infrastructure I can graduate on time (4 years) or if I get my focus in structural it’d take one extra year or maybe just 1 semester if I take summer classes. The good news is that if I’m already forced to take three years for a focus in structural I might as well get my masters in structural by graduating with a focus in infrastructure and doing one year of grad school for my masters. I really want to get into the structural field of civil engineering post grad. I’ve been introduced to the office side of things as well as actual field work from a very young age and have had an internship in this field ever since I was a freshman in college. What do you guys recommend me do in my situation? Get my masters, get my PE, or just graduate with my bachelors with focus in infrastructure and job hunt post grad since I’ve had a pretty good amount of internships and experience. What do employers look for? Thank you guys if you have read this far, I’d really appreciate any advice and help, thank you!!!!!

I'm currently a math teacher (strong logical/technical mind, deeply detail-oriented and socially forward), but I'm making a strong transition into civil engineering (I've been toying with the idea, but I keep coming back to it so I'm committing). I'm 30 years old, woman, living in NYC. I'm still waiting to get admitted into the program of my choice (find out July 15th), but

does anyone have any advice on what I should be self teaching, how to get internships, how to reach out to shadow professionals. Will the industry be open to a 30 year old willing to learn? What is your take on the situation and how to get into the industry?