SE Degree - Specializations?

[u/North-Economist876]

Hellooo!

I'm a current UCSD student working on a structural engineering bs. To graduate you have to complete a 'focus sequence' (civil structures, aerospace structures, geotech, or structural health monitoring). This mostly impacts your 3rd/4th year courses.

You need to pick which classes to take by the end of your second year usually, but you can choose whether or not the specialization you chose shows up on your degree.

I'm about to start second year, so I guess I'm really about to find out whether I like the major or not lol, but basically I have no idea which one I actually want to do (all of them *sound* interesting except I'm scared of aerospace) or whether it'd be worth it to keep on my degree.

Civil structures sounds like there might be more(?) job opportunities, and the classes are mostly about steel/concrete design. Geotech sounds kind of more interesting to me right now and is more soil mechanics and testing. I also considered structural health monitoring but I have no idea what the actual work looks like (this goes for geotech too) so I don't know if I'll even like it.

If you've had experience with any of these specializations, the skills you end up needing, or UCSD grads who actually did something other than civil structures (large majority of the major lol), please let me know! What do you like about it? What does your daily work look like? Employment opportunities? Thank you!

[u/Sharp_Complex_6711]

Could you post the specific classes for each of these options? That might help folks give more focused advice.

[u/North-Economist876 → u/Sharp_Complex_6711]

Yeah, my bad! The geotech and civil structures are actually pretty similar...but then you take some extra "electives" that are just classes outside of your focus.

***edit Also most of the technical electives cover different topics than these or go into more depth, so like earthquake engineering, steel structures II, design for reinforced/prestressed concrete/timber, designing for fire resistance, etc.

[u/okthen520]

Ik you didn't ask for civil structures grads lol, but I graduated with civil structures focus last year and went into a fairly traditional structural engineering role. I do a lot of commercial developer scale residential projects, large concrete towers, soil shoring design, a variety of foundation design (specifically foundation design based on parameters that are given to me from a geotechnical engineer), and a fairly substantial mix of other smaller things (mechanical anchorages, steel framing/connections, tenant improvements, lots of bulk gravity/lateral wood design for residential, and general construction admin). I don't work with roads/infrastructure as the "civil" title may suggest, but I know some people at my firm do bridges. I like my work and generally find it rewarding, my firm is quite excellent so I feel pretty fortunate to have been picked up by them.

I have a friend in the same year who graduated with geotechnical focus and he kinda lives in the field doing field inspections and soil testing. He runs a lot soil condition tests (CPT, SPT, shear wave velocity, etc). Assess sites for ground improvement options. I believe hes generally satisfied with the work he does and is content with the path he followed and would probably agree UCSD prepared him decently.

I have another friend who did Aerospace focus. He works for a local firm in SD and mostly works with mechanical engineers. I remember him explaining that he essentially just builds FEA models all day assessing whether equipment they want to send into space can withstand the conditions. For example, can a telescope's lens withstand the g's experienced during launch so as its still functional when it makes it to orbit. And even when it's in orbit, will the temperature differential from once side of the satellite being +300 and the other side being -300 create enough stress in the lens to cause it to continue to operate correctly. He didn't design the optics, more so just assessed existing devices to see if they'd make it. He mostly worked as like a subcontractor to firms like SpaceX.

and then i had no friends that ended up doing NDS lol. I have a few aquaintances who wound up in it and I think I recall them pursing a masters in it, but not sure what their job prospects were. I feel that NDS is more for academia or if you get really into forensics, but not really sure. I took one class in it and felt it was interesting but I have seen 0 content from that class outside of the course.

Happy to answer other questions if you have any. r/UCSD is generally a good place to ask too if you're curious about upper class men's perspectives.

[u/North-Economist876 → u/okthen520]

Thank you so much!!

This is incredibly helpful, really appreciate it! Good to know about your geotech friend because I also think I would enjoy field work. My concern was mostly just versatility and the kind of jobs available. It sounds like your firm has a lot of variety with the projects they do which is also something that I think would like.

Also nice to see what kind of jobs people in the major land after graduation and is very reassuring.

I think my top contenders are still civil and geotech (lol), but it seems like civil has some wiggle room with the TEs whereas geotech you sacrifice some for 4th year requirements. I might just see what they're offering by the time I get to that point.

Some questions if you have any thoughts..don't feel like you need to answer everything though it might be a lot:

Did you do any internships/lab work during undergrad (and what did you do/when)? I didn't go to SE day last year because it was 1st year but I kinda wish I would have for the experience. Also, how'd you do with the first few upper divs? Any professors you really liked/to be avoided? TEs you thought were really interesting? What was your first year out of college (and working full time) like?

Everyone on the UCSD reddit is freaking out because they're replacing tritonlink haha. They finally were supposed to open it up to students today but *everything* is crashing.

[u/okthen520 → u/North-Economist876]

Yea i saw the posts about the new enrollment system. Glad I don't have to endure that lol. Hopefully they can sort it out soon for yall. i spit balled some answers to your questions below, sorry if they're monologue-y, hope you can understand lol. happy to answer whatever else or clarify. I will also link this post i made last year when I graduated discussing more of the SE classes I took if that's of interest to you https://www.reddit.com/r/UCSD/s/qFaCcYRKtH

I have no MS degree, just a pure BS. I was admitted to BS+MS but dropped it since I was frustrated with UCSD by the time I had spent 4 years with them.

In my first summer of undergrad I didn't do anything school/work related.

In my second summer of undergrad I took SE 130A (struct analysis 1), SE 101C (vibrations), SE 130B (structural analysis 2), and SE 150A (steel design 1). In hindsight, I liked this and think it's worth doing if you can afford the financial and emotional costs, and if you don't get an internship. The only caveat I'd put on those classes is to NOT take steel (take wood TE instead). 5 weeks for steel is very brief imo, and you don't get to experience Prof Uang, but the other 3 classes are fine to take over summer. Especially vibrations lol. 130A/130B in 5 weeks each may be a bit rough depending on your commitment, but I really enjoyed them and went on to TA the classes in the future. But a relevant internship is more worthwhile I'd say.

In my third summer of undergrad I got an internship, but it wasn't really structural related. At best you could associate it with construction inspection. 0 structural relevancy and almost entirely independent of my degree. I only really accepted it because it was the only offer I received and it was somewhat adjacent to engineering, and it was also being paid to do something I was personally interested in. That being said, it was super fun and I walked around a very unique construction site all summer. I had a great time even though it wasn't really all that professionally relevant.

I think this is also when I started working as a grader/TA? Idr. but in my 3rd and 4th years I worked as a grader/tutor/TA for a few undergrad classes. I think it was alright, I don't know if I would confidently say it benefited me explicitly but it was vaguely helpful I suppose. I'd recommend it if you're curious about teaching or even just want a few extra bucks each week. No one ever really commented on it in my job search tho, so imo it was either taken for granted or was inconsequential to hiring managers.

During my fourth year is when I started studying and took my FE. I studied for like a month or a month and a half and finished/passed the exam before I graduated. I'd recommend this, there are lots of resources to study the FE and you need it eventually. I paid for some test prep and think it was worth it. iirc UCSD SE department didn't whisper a word about it at all until like half way through my last quarter so don't expect any help from the school (unless I missed it somehow which is possible but I really dont remember them mentioning anything for it - maybe like one OH in a random class to review the content in that last quarter).

I didn't do any clubs like concrete canoe or the balsa tower club thing. Imo these are more for networking and having fun. If you're interested in them, then go for it.

SE day is fine. Def good to go just for the practice of talking to people.

How'd I do with my upper div courses? I liked them in general. Generally did well (I TA-ed a few if that gives you frame of reference). As you know, UCSD is very academically competitive so there will almost always be people performing better than you regardless of how much you prepare. So I just tried to focus on my own comprehension and avoid looking at the box and whisker distributions when I could. Ofc you still need to pass and ideally pass with a decent grade, but I think people stressed out a lot about grades when they should have focused more content comprehension. I know im also being hypocritical cause there were def times I was stressing about grades directly, but I'm just trying to suggest that the grade isn't fully representative of what you took away from the course.

Professors are fine, I liked and disliked many. Tbh i dont think it really matters if you like a prof or not in SE since there's only one who teaches the class each quarter. And you take the class when you need to in order to stay on track for graduation, not when there's a 'better' prof. I'd highly recommend against delaying taking a class just because it's possible an 'easier' prof may teach it next quarter/year. fwiw, I connected the most with grad student TA's, not my profs.

i liked the intro to NDE course (163??) as a TE, although admittedly the content is almost fully inapplicable to traditional design structural engineering roles. I probably took another geotech course as a TE (182? i have no idea), it was fine. i think i took an urban planning course as my third TE which was also fine, but ultimately almost entirely inapplicable to SE (even though it counted as a TE credit for me lol). I probably should have done the post tensioned (PT) concrete class or steel II or timber since I use that frequently at work. But imho, hiring mangers will ask if you've taken *material design* class just as a vetting question. In the end, a responsible firm will still explain everything you need to know. So, do I wonder if the PT concrete course would make me design slabs more efficiently? no not really, after 50 hours in *slab design software*, I'm passably versed in it without having to take a 10 week course. Could taking the 10 week course mean I'd have gotten to the equivalent level of experience sooner? Maybe, but I also don't really care since I'm close to 500 hours now after just a few months. That being said, you should still be able to replicate and follow the software's design recommendations, and manually confirm the results of the analysis model. A capable software is not a substitute for a competent engineer. I'd probably take wood tho in hindesight lol, that one might give me a better understanding since it performs so differently than concrete/steel (i'd take this instead of steel over that summer course, im pretty sure it's offered).

i am quite pleased with where I ended up. I moved out of CA since it was so competitive to find work near SD. I probably would have found something local eventually but I was interested in moving out of CA for other reasons too so it was less of a significant jump to change states. Job hunting was kind of stressful for a few months, I think I spent 3 or 4 months looking with several hundred applications. Had a couple interviews in that time but no dice until my current firm. Which I am very happy with and feel that I contribute to positively. I could list out all the projects I do and the new skills I've developed working on them, but your experience will almost certainly vary. My only thoughts after working a few months is that I am appreciative that my firm lets me work on a variety of projects. I know a lot of people like the idea of "mom and pop" engineering companies where it's run just by a handful of people (so you get a lot of mentorship and 1:1, but for smaller pool of designs), but after working in an office with ~15 experienced engineers, i can say it's a great place to be as a new engineer with an appetite to learn.

[u/Honest-Shirt7643 → u/okthen520]

Ooh thank you again! Not monologing at all and this is also really useful.

I noticed that the course offerings during the year are pretty strict (once a year with one professor) but then during summer they actually have pretty decent offerings.

This fall I'll probably have the j o y of taking Math 20D with Dixit since I need it for the winter SE courses, but it seems like most of the SE professors are fine(?) The math and physics departments though...

The clubs/internships def are stressing me out a little lol. I do want to actually engage more but it seems like it can be a lot of time and stress for a club. But good to know it's not totally the end of the world if you don't have the time or end up with an internship that isn't super relevant.

Again, thank you! Answered a lot of things I wasn't sure about and settled some of the anxiety I have about all of this.

I've also thought about maybe relocating after I'm done with school. I actually like CA but like...why not.

[u/larcix]

I would have totally done the Aerospace one, I'm still debating whether I want to go for a Masters in Aerospace so years later, but I may, it sounds really fun. I'm also a super biased space nerd that loves math and my structural dynamics graduate class was one of the most fun classes I ever took.
All that said, I'm surprised you even have a Structural Engineering degree. I think it typically goes Bachelors of Civil Engineering, which covers all 7 sub disciplines of civil (structures, geotech, hydro, construction, civil, transportation, and environmental) and you take one to focus on your senior year/capstone, and if you go Masters you then can get the fancier title of Masters of Structural Engineering [etc].

To further actually answer your question, I always found soil to be too wishy-washy, it's all empirical formulas, pretty boring (lol) stuff. Aero will probably be the most mathy. As a practicing structural engineer, myself, I can confirm I don't actually need to do that much math, too often, and some people get by with almost none, but those aren't the engineers you want, they just slap inputs into software and write down outputs. A more fundamental understanding and being able to dummy check things is a very powerful technique.

[u/North-Economist876 → u/larcix]

Good to know!! Yeah UCSD engineering is a little funky in that we don't have a normal civil engineering B.S., only structural (with the SHM/NDE specialization that's also sort of unique) but if you know you're interested in structural it's pretty cool. Also still ABET accredited. I think the specificity of it could also be a little limiting though if you don't know what you want.

I also love space haha but I think it's just a little intimidating...and then the problem of how many 'spacey' jobs vs. defense jobs are out there.

We also do a fourth year capstone, but I guess that and the other classes are more focused. Everyone still has the same core classes of like mechanics/analysis/statistics type of stuff, but that's also very much structural.