List of Contributions

Mr. James Hansen Smith, P.E., M.ASCE

Bergmann (Colliers Engineering & Design, Inc.)

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Bergmann (Colliers Engineering & Design, Inc.)
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Mr. James Smith, P.E., M.ASCE


Bergmann (Colliers Engineering & Design, Inc.)

My Content

1 to 20 of 44 total

RE: Questions about licensure

Posted By James Smith 07-16-2020 02:23 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Tung, many states will waive the FE if you have your PhD in Civil Engineering. Something to look into. As far as studying goes the FE exam has changed dramatically since I took it (in 2013). As you're probably aware you can take it more often (not just twice a year), it's digital (no pencil/paper), ...

RE: Questions about licensure

Posted By James Smith 07-15-2020 06:49 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
I would agree that School of PE was very helpful. I didn't take the course, but was able to use leftover notes from a co-worker. I also used the Lindberg book quite a bit. It's pricey, but it's a good resource for having all in the information in one place and used it a lot on exam day. The companion ...

RE: Empirical Data on Global Warming and CO2

Posted By James Smith 06-09-2020 03:01 PM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
To quote Neil DeGrasse Tyson, "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." When one sets out to prove something, and fit the data to reach their conclusion (confirmation bias), then the conclusion has violated the scientific method. I understand you claim that's ...

RE: What percentage of your salary do you put towards retirement, and how early in your career did you start saving?

Posted By James Smith 01-27-2020 10:09 AM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Great topic! I started saving for retirement after graduating college at 22 in 2014. I started with a Traditional 401k at about 10% and transitioned to a Roth 401k once that was available. I've tried to raise that by 1% a year and depending on how things are going will cap that off around 20% if I can ...

RE: Incorporating Sustainability in Your Life

Posted By James Smith 01-09-2020 02:14 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Kelly raises a good point about the environmental impacts of paper vs. plastic on the bags in the upstream. It would make sense that paper bags have a bigger footprint. After all they're much heavier and comprised of more material. That is, one paper bag takes up more space and is heavier than one plastic ...

RE: The Gender Wage (and Workforce Participation) Gap in Civil Engineering

Posted By James Smith 12-12-2019 10:10 AM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
The pay report posted by Stephanie does support the existence of a pay gap in the structural engineering workforce, thank you for sharing. The full excerpt she references reads: Male respondents earned, on average, $27,500 more than female respondents. This pay gap was skewed toward higher positions ...

RE: Incorporating Sustainability in Your Life

Posted By James Smith 12-09-2019 10:11 AM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Great topic Danielle! Sustainability is an especially important topic, not only in our work but in our daily lives. We must lead by example! Personally I keep a steel extra knife, spoon, and fork from home that I wash reuse for all my lunches. I bring a tumbler for coffee and water from home that ...

RE: What's One Thing High School Students Should Know About Civil Engineering?

Posted By James Smith 11-22-2019 11:19 AM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
I find in my mentoring program with high school students that it's best to be very simple and succinct when talking about Civil Engineering. The number 1 thing I want them to know about Civil Engineering is: Civil Engineering is a very diverse field. We do a lot more than bridges and buildings. In ...

RE: Millennial Retirement

Posted By James Smith 11-19-2019 06:13 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Some great feedback so far! One thing I did want to mention Tel is that most retirement investment firms recommend saving approximately 1/2 year salary by age 30 and 1 year salary by age 40. These are by no means fixed metrics, but if you start investing in your 401k later your will need to invest ...

Millennial Retirement

Posted By James Smith 11-08-2019 04:27 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Someone recently shared an article with me about millennial retirement that got me thinking, and I wanted to see what others thought. Millennials being ages 20-37, most are now in the workforce making these decisions about retirement. Here's the article: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/23/millennial ...

RE: Miscommunication at Construction Sites

Posted By James Smith 10-07-2019 10:06 AM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Great topic! One issue I've had with Yance's suggestion with these meetings is that the people in attendance are more senior staff that aren't actually the ones at the site. They are usually the contractor firm's construction manager, which has seen much more plans and usually has an engineering degree, ...

RE: NCEES Education Tracking, Mississippi

Posted By James Smith 10-07-2019 10:04 AM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
I think the biggest issue is the variation between states. For example Michigan has no such requirement, so an audit can be particularly difficult for someone that hasn't been keeping accurate records. When I talk to younger engineer friends and family about getting their PE and they ask me what they ...

RE: Hindsight is 20/20

Posted By James Smith 09-24-2019 12:07 PM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
Great topic Kenneth! I started my career a little over 5 years ago, and college just a couple weeks over 9 years ago now (hard to believe how much time has flown). I'm certainly keen to glean advice for my own career and offer some of my own experience to those just getting started. In college: ...

RE: The Gender Wage (and Workforce Participation) Gap in Civil Engineering

Posted By James Smith 09-18-2019 06:39 PM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
Along the lines with what Jeanne said, I think something that appears to be lacking in the report, that would gleam a lot of information is are the ages of respondents. I would agree that the Civil Engineering profession as a whole is finally becoming more diverse. Maybe not as fast as we might hope ...

RE: Failure on Paper

Posted By James Smith 09-17-2019 06:01 PM
Found In Egroup: Integrated Buildings & Structures \ view thread
Chad, Great topic! This is something that's a big part of Civil Engineering that no one really likes to talk about. From putting together proposals and bids that aren't accepted, to efforts that require tedious trial and error, to plan changes (for any myriad of reasons), disputes with sub-consultants ...

RE: Entry Level Positions

Posted By James Smith 09-16-2019 05:39 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
I think it may more to do with your location and timing than a slowdown of hiring entry level engineers. With the new school year starting and career fairs kicking off most firms should be getting into full gear to hire entry level positions right now. So maybe less over the past few months, but I'd ...

RE: Traits and Qualities of Leaders in the Industry

Posted By James Smith 09-06-2019 12:09 PM
Found In Egroup: Professional and Career Topics \ view thread
Great topic Eva! Here's my input: What qualities and traits do you believe makes a great leader in an engineering industry? A good leader is calm, listens more than speaks, and is decisive. There are many traits that a leader should also have, but in the engineering industry I would ...

RE: University Hunt

Posted By James Smith 09-04-2019 11:04 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Shahab, Way to be thinking early! There's certainly lots of university programs out there for Transportation Masters degrees, but I think you may have the wrong mindset. Certainly aiming for a prestigious university is always a good aim, but particularly with Masters programs it's more about what ...

RE: How has mentoring advanced your career?

Posted By James Smith 08-19-2019 05:03 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
I've been involved in mentoring programs both as the mentor, and mentee. Ultimately I found that you get out of it what you put into it, but that both parties have to be equally involved. I work with programs at a local high school to mentor kids for a class period a month and talk about various topics ...

RE: Internships - Your Experience?

Posted By James Smith 08-19-2019 03:07 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
While I think getting an internship should always be your 1st priority, don't think that if you exhaust all efforts and don't get one that you will not be able to get an engineering job. I know myself and many others had that pit in our stomach after not getting one after the career fair had come and ...