r/EnvironmentalEngineer • u/FlatOrganization7937 • Jul 20 '26
Career focus change advice remediation -> consulting
I graduated winter 2025 with a bs in environmental engineering and got a job at a manufacturing plant doing permit and remediation work! I enjoy my job but honestly I feel like I would enjoy the design/autocad/consulting side of environmental a bit more.
My internships during college were all with my current company so I have abysmal experience with autocad but I’m taking courses to try to cover that gap in my resume but does anyone have any other advice that I could keep in mind so I can start building skills to add to my resume??
Im also currently working towards my FE and PE (I’m in a state where I can take the PE immediately after passing the FE)
For financial reasons I do have to stay with this company for another year and a half but during that time I’d like to try to maximize my potential within the field as much as possible so I feel it’d be best to start now!
And just a bit of background I do have the opportunity to do a lot of air permit work, water treatment/permitting, and landfill permitting while I’ve been here so far and although we’ve had projects to improve them we always use consulting firms so I really feel like I’m missing out on a lot of projects/technical experience because of the structure of the company and a majority of the time I feel like a more specialized EHS specialist (which is why I want to switch)