Professional and Career Topics

A recent discussion came up with one of my friends who works as an EIT. Someone asked him if he had any input on where things are built and why, and he said no, because that's obviously the role of policy makers and urban planners, not civil engineers.

For a little more added context, we both live in Salt Lake City, which has it's own housing crisis: there are too many people moving into the city and not enough homes to build for them. In other parts of Utah, like the city of Moab, things are even worse. A large part of the population is worried about the environmental impacts of rampant construction as well as if we even have the carrying capacity for so many people in the state, not to mention if the homes are even affordable and if we're just building a bunch of apartments that take up space that will always have "for lease" on the side of the property.

In my opinion, we aren't expanding in a very smart way, but nobody would ask me if I should build the apartment complex as an engineer, but if I can. They obviously want to build it even if it wouldn't necessarily be in the city's best long-term interests, and they don't care what the engineer really thinks, at least in this context.

My question to all of you is: Have you ever regret building or designing something? Did you ever have input on what should be done and did it have an impact later down the line? Have you ever refused to work on a project because you thought it would be against the best long-term interests of the public, the environment, or even the client themselves? I look forward to hearing your responses.

A recent discussion came up with one of my friends who works as an EIT. Someone asked him if he had any input on where things are built and why, and he said no, because that's obviously the role of policy makers and urban planners, not civil engineers.

For a little more added context, we both live in Salt Lake City, which has it's own housing crisis: there are too many people moving into the city and not enough homes to build for them. In other parts of Utah, like the city of Moab, things are even worse. A large part of the population is worried about the environmental impacts of rampant construction as well as if we even have the carrying capacity for so many people in the state, not to mention if the homes are even affordable and if we're just building a bunch of apartments that take up space that will always have "for lease" on the side of the property.

In my opinion, we aren't expanding in a very smart way, but nobody would ask me if I should build the apartment complex as an engineer, but if I can. They obviously want to build it even if it wouldn't necessarily be in the city's best long-term interests, and they don't care what the engineer really thinks, at least in this context.

My question to all of you is: Have you ever regret building or designing something? Did you ever have input on what should be done and did it have an impact later down the line? Have you ever refused to work on a project because you thought it would be against the best long-term interests of the public, the environment, or even the client themselves? I look forward to hearing your responses.

A recent discussion came up with one of my friends who works as an EIT. Someone asked him if he had any input on where things are built and why, and he said no, because that's obviously the role of policy makers and urban planners, not civil engineers.

For a little more added context, we both live in Salt Lake City, which has it's own housing crisis: there are too many people moving into the city and not enough homes to build for them. In other parts of Utah, like the city of Moab, things are even worse. A large part of the population is worried about the environmental impacts of rampant construction as well as if we even have the carrying capacity for so many people in the state, not to mention if the homes are even affordable and if we're just building a bunch of apartments that take up space that will always have "for lease" on the side of the property.

In my opinion, we aren't expanding in a very smart way, but nobody would ask me if I should build the apartment complex as an engineer, but if I can. They obviously want to build it even if it wouldn't necessarily be in the city's best long-term interests, and they don't care what the engineer really thinks, at least in this context.

My question to all of you is: Have you ever regret building or designing something? Did you ever have input on what should be done and did it have an impact later down the line? Have you ever refused to work on a project because you thought it would be against the best long-term interests of the public, the environment, or even the client themselves? I look forward to hearing your responses.

A recent discussion came up with one of my friends who works as an EIT. Someone asked him if he had any input on where things are built and why, and he said no, because that's obviously the role of policy makers and urban planners, not civil engineers.

For a little more added context, we both live in Salt Lake City, which has it's own housing crisis: there are too many people moving into the city and not enough homes to build for them. In other parts of Utah, like the city of Moab, things are even worse. A large part of the population is worried about the environmental impacts of rampant construction as well as if we even have the carrying capacity for so many people in the state, not to mention if the homes are even affordable and if we're just building a bunch of apartments that take up space that will always have "for lease" on the side of the property.

In my opinion, we aren't expanding in a very smart way, but nobody would ask me if I should build the apartment complex as an engineer, but if I can. They obviously want to build it even if it wouldn't necessarily be in the city's best long-term interests, and they don't care what the engineer really thinks, at least in this context.

My question to all of you is: Have you ever regret building or designing something? Did you ever have input on what should be done and did it have an impact later down the line? Have you ever refused to work on a project because you thought it would be against the best long-term interests of the public, the environment, or even the client themselves? I look forward to hearing your responses.

A recent discussion came up with one of my friends who works as an EIT. Someone asked him if he had any input on where things are built and why, and he said no, because that's obviously the role of policy makers and urban planners, not civil engineers.

For a little more added context, we both live in Salt Lake City, which has it's own housing crisis: there are too many people moving into the city and not enough homes to build for them. In other parts of Utah, like the city of Moab, things are even worse. A large part of the population is worried about the environmental impacts of rampant construction as well as if we even have the carrying capacity for so many people in the state, not to mention if the homes are even affordable and if we're just building a bunch of apartments that take up space that will always have "for lease" on the side of the property.

In my opinion, we aren't expanding in a very smart way, but nobody would ask me if I should build the apartment complex as an engineer, but if I can. They obviously want to build it even if it wouldn't necessarily be in the city's best long-term interests, and they don't care what the engineer really thinks, at least in this context.

My question to all of you is: Have you ever regret building or designing something? Did you ever have input on what should be done and did it have an impact later down the line? Have you ever refused to work on a project because you thought it would be against the best long-term interests of the public, the environment, or even the client themselves? I look forward to hearing your responses.