On every family gathering where a distant relative of mine realizes I have a degree in Civil Engineering, they would often quip, “Inday, ikaw madesign sang balay ko ha.” From casual conversations to Facebook memes, some people are still under the impression that Civil Engineers are mere builders of homes.
Honestly, so did I.
I always thought I’d end up in the construction site right after I graduate while I oversee a residential or a commercial project. Spoiler alert: I didn’t. Turns out, there is more to Civil Engineering than just hard hats and steel tapes. With seven specialty divisions embraced by the Philippine Institute of Civil Engineers Inc. (PICE), civil engineers are more empowered than ever to pursue a specific track they are passionate about.
The seven specialty divisions are: Structural Engineering, Transportation Engineering, Environmental and Energy Engineering, Water Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Civil Engineering Education, and Project Management and Construction.
Just five years ago, I never really understood why my professors would always remark on how broad the scope of Civil Engineering is. Now, I am one of the staunch heralds of that message. Every time I get asked by a college freshman, my reply is always the same – Civil Engineering is an encompassing profession and it merits its specializations.
OUTSMARTING THE NEW NORMAL
However, Civil Engineers, no matter the specialization, took a hard hit when the Covid-19 pandemic redefined what’s ‘normal’. The repercussions of the unseen virus were immediate. Contractors struggled with supply chain issues – it was as if the tap for supplies was turned off. Site engineers were forced to work from home and most projects were suspended indefinitely.
These are only a handful of examples from the plethora of impacts the pandemic put on Civil Engineers especially in the construction industry. But CEs are in the frontier of nation-building and took the challenge to embrace the radical shift in the new normal.
Engineers and contractors had their eyes set on digitization to accelerate work and increase productivity. The working patterns were also adjusted to include graveyard shifts. This was done to comply with regulation on maximum number of personnel onsite, while protecting staff from infection.
But the construction industry wasn’t the only one that took the plunge during Covid. Engineers engaged in Civil Engineering Education had to deal with massive industry changes as well. I, for one, belong to the pioneer batch of CE graduates who reviewed for the licensure exam online. We didn’t go to Cebu as planned, nor did we take the board exam six months after we earned our diplomas. We never even went up on stage to receive our diplomas because we never had a face-to-face graduation. Students and teachers were robbed of their natural habitat as schools were on lockdown and no one had set foot inside classrooms for two years.
Nonetheless, as trailblazers, Civil Engineers seized the online mode of learning and used it not only to deepen their academic understanding, but to build character. CE students had more resources to choose to from while teachers took advantage of learning management systems such as Aralinks and Canvas.
FORECASTING THE FUTURE
When dealing with massive infrastructures that can either improve or take lives, there will always be an incentive to strive for efficiency and effectivity.
Just three decades ago, our structural and geotechnical engineers used the long-established pen and paper to solve for maximum bending moments and axial forces before they design RC buildings. Fast forward to the 2000s, the use of spreadsheet was the norm. Everyone put to good use the iterative power of Microsoft Excel to compute with ease. Designs for various structural elements such as beams, columns, footings, and slabs were already templated – one only had to input a select set of data.
Now, a full structural analysis and design of a two-story building can be done in 10x times shorter than it used to a decades ago. With mastery, you can even analyze and design in STAAD.Pro using a text editor like Notepad.
Who knows what advances will unfold in the next couple of years? Who knows what else in store? Though we might not have the definite answers to these queries, one thing is for sure: Civil Engineers are dynamic professionals who adapt with the needs of the present while looking towards the future with hope. Should another pandemic come their way, they will find a way.*