Civil engineering is about community service, development, and improvement. It involves the conception, planning, design, construction, and operation of facilities essential to modern life, from transit systems to offshore structures to space satellites.

Civil engineers are solvers of real-world problems, meeting the challenges of pollution, traffic congestion, drinking water and energy needs, urban redevelopment, and community planning. 

Growth areas in civil engineering include infrastructure development, construction management, computer-aided design, engineered environmental systems and flood-related sciences.  

In planning and design, civil engineers work with other engineers, architects, landscape architects, planners, economists, financiers, sociologists, lawyers, and other specialists as members of the design team. Some engineers work in offices while others construct or supervise outdoor projects they have designed. There also is great potential for entrepreneurial work by civil and environmental engineers as they start their own companies.