Member Voices

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Steven M. Rienks, P.E., PMP, M.ASCE, is director of engineering for American Surveying and Engineering in Chicago. He’s ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    I haven’t attended an in-person conference since 2019. Covid really put a hold on most in-person events, especially large ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    It is no secret that the cost of goods has increased dramatically over the past couple of years. Inflation has put a squeeze ...

    6 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    How do I make the most of a career fair? This question is a common one among those who are in college and seeking summer ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    A functional mentorship experience is exceptionally rewarding, as both the mentors and the mentees can appreciate their own ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Engineering is one the most fulfilling careers (I may be a little biased), as we work fully to serve the public. Our work ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    In high school, all I ever wanted to do was to leave my hometown and attend a four-year university. With this goal in mind, ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    In preparation for November's ASCE Resume Workshop that will provide a dedicated thread for public sector resumes ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    USAJobs can be an extremely helpful website for civil engineers looking for work in the public sector. However, in order ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Public sector engineering jobs can provide fulfilling careers. Public employment offers great benefits, competitive salaries, ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Small and rural communities across America often struggle to provide service to their constituents. This means not only aging ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    “Take an offer from a large company, you are wasting your talents at a small company like X.” That was the advice I received ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    For the early-career civil engineer, one of the daily challenges can be managing a simple task: asking questions. The ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Working for a global company, I've had the privilege to work with colleagues across our offices around the world on multiple ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    I just thought I was a stressed person: that always feeling a little stressed was normal; that taking multiple sick weeks ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    “I am sorry, but we are not actually looking to hire anyone at the moment.” If you were a recent graduate, and/or let ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    From 2018 to 2020, I had the opportunity to attend the University of Delaware and obtain a graduate certificate in railroad ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    At a previous job, I remember I stayed late in the office one evening, when, as I was walking to take a break, I overhear ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    “Hi, my name is Dani Schroeder and my pronouns are she/her.” For the last two years or so, this is how I have been introducing ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    This question was recently posed by one of our student members, and it is a topic that impacts a lot of engineering students. ...

    6 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    I’ll start this by stating that a mentor can be a great resource to help guide your professional and personal growth. I believe ...

    8 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Just like professional development or a healthy lifestyle, financial well-being is something that should be part of our daily ...

    7 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Give me a thumbs-up if you have virtual meeting fatigue. It has been over a year since the World Health Organization ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    We judge books by their covers and resumes by their cover letters. What does your cover letter say about you? Those first ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Applying for job positions can be exciting and stressful at the same time. It’s exciting to advance your career by applying ...

    6 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Many of us find the need to shift gears at some point, and change discipline, arena, sector, or perhaps even country, mid-career. ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    My first go at college was rough to say the least. I moved to Canada, struggled with school work, switched my major twice ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Food insecurity is a term I was introduced to not that long ago. At the beginning of the pandemic, this term was especially ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    By now we have all been affected by the craziness of 2020, one way or another. The news of people losing family members, ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Studies show that diverse teams produce more effective solutions. Harvard Business Review found that diverse teams are ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    I graduated from South Dakota State University a few years ago with an M.S. in civil engineering. As a graduate student, ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    A resume should be a brief summary of your skills, experiences, and achievements and how they relate to the specific job ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Choosing the right engineering program is just one of many influences on future career prospects for budding engineers. To ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    To understand my point of view, you will need to know what the comic books call my origin story. I come from the small Venezuelan ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Has anyone ever told you to build your professional brand and you had no idea what that meant or how to do it? Your professional ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    You don’t know what you don’t know. So how do you become a “knower?” Your mentor, or preferably mentors, will help you. ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    As a senior civil engineering student approaching the fall semester, I am trying wildly to prepare for the challenges that ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    We are amidst a global event that has impacted everyone’s work and home life to some degree. While maintaining a perfect ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    When I was a young professional early in my career, I was extremely excited to have graduated with my undergraduate degree, ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The COVID-19 pandemic has directly affected various industries, and nearly all aspects of the supply chain continue to be ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Hey, you did it! You finally graduated, and now you are ready to find a job and start the journey of life! That was ...

    8 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Proactivity - The Fundamental Requirement Answer these two questions: Who is responsible for how you spend your ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The coronavirus outbreak has brought about radical change in the way companies operate. With most operations going remote, ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Remember when you were 17 years old, filling out multiple college applications, scrolling through the hundreds of possible ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Most people are teenagers when they enter college and have to choose a major. I was a 17-year-old student at the University ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    A career path in the engineering industry tends to follow a linear trajectory. The educational programs are clearly defined, ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Time is just as important as money, but sometimes the schedule is not tracked as closely as the budget. Punctuality and time ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    With most of us now working from home, new challenges have emerged. Our company has encouraged more and more communication ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Like for many others, working from home is entirely new to me. It may be challenging to set boundaries and stay motivated. ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Do you have an engineering dream job? You know, the one for that company you’ve been following online for months, if not ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    So, you’ve made up your mind to leave your current company and start a new chapter at another company. There could be an ...

    4 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    As a 20-year-old female civil engineering student at Santa Rosa Junior College, I never would have thought that I’d get the ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Presentations are an important aspect of professional life. Whether it’s to win work, share results or train staff, having ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The energy industry has changed dramatically since the turn of the century. It will continue to evolve as technological and ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Balancing work and home life can be a real challenge at times. Add in motherhood, and it can get downright crazy. I would ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The Fundamentals of Engineering – or FE – exam is a great way to test (pun intended) what students learned while pursuing ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Professional licensure, like most things in life, comes with aspects that are good, bad and ugly. Fortunately, when weighing ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Here are five things you can do to excel as an entry-level civil engineer. Reorganize your thinking Imagine ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Like many civil engineers, I work in an open-office layout. This type of office is great for the collaborative work that ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    When I first decided to pursue an education in civil engineering, my big, long-term stretch goals were to (1) obtain full-time ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Choosing a major in college “Umm … psychology, computer science or biology!” This was my exact response in my senior ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Over the years, I have been frequently asked if it was hard to come to the United States as an international student and ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    One of the major concerns among the growing number of young professionals all over the world is the challenge of building ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Salvador Bentolila did a great job outlining the benefits of having a mentor in his Career By Design article “ Mentoring: ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    “…everyone is now a marketer.” -Seth Godin I have heard engineering students say that they are going into engineering ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    As soon as I found out about ASCE’s new mentoring platform, ASCE Mentor Match, I became interested in the idea of mentoring. ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    One stereotype often attached to civil engineers is that in private industries they often end up in blue-collar jobs involving ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Despite what many may think, being a licensed professional engineer (PE) does not mean you are at the pinnacle of your field. ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Online graduate education is no longer the sole domain of MBAs. Civil engineers, in increasing numbers each year, are returning ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The wafting aroma of cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. signals the arrival of spring. Whenever the weather breaks, I am ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The other week I was at a dredging conference where there were multiple presentations on safety in the dredging industry. ...

  • Posted in: Career By Design

    “…everyone is now a marketer.” – Seth Godin I have heard engineering students say that they are going into engineering ...

    5 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    After completing graduate work last year at the University of Maryland, I began looking for entry-level geotechnical engineering ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    When someone says there is sexism in engineering, what do you think it means? You’re probably thinking that the term is ...

    3 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    The civil engineering profession continues to evolve as we look for new ways to handle our current tasks more accuracy and ...

    2 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Although I’m a recent graduate, I’ve already had the chance to experience working for two different employers in the private ...

    1 person likes this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    Many engineering students look forward to the day when their hard work and long hours studying will pay off in a job offer. ...

    6 people like this.
  • Posted in: Career By Design

    As young professionals, public transparency is something that comes second nature to us. I have always had access to any ...

    2 people like this.
*** Interested in sharing your perspective on a professional development topic? Contact Tirza Austin at [email protected].