Your career, your future: Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering is one of the most crucial sectors that help run life on earth. Almost everything in this world needs a civil engineer.

From roads to highways, residential properties to commercial and high-rise buildings, from bridges to dams and tunnels, life and businesses depend on the construction and maintenance of structures.

Besides that, providing schools for students, hospitals for the sick, and monuments for the tourism industry are also part of a civil engineer’s job.

One of the biggest losses that can be made by a country after human loss is infrastructural damage. Infrastructures impact the economy of countries, which shows how much Civil Engineers are important to society.

Pursuing my degree in Civil Engineering taught me that my mission as a Civil Engineer is to identify problems around me and help solve them.

The course covers a broad range of subjects that concern the construction process, the administrative procedures, the design phase, the maths, surveying, and different soil and material tests that all together lead to the accomplishment of a project. Using the skills I acquired, I hope to be able to deliver the best services and products to clients in terms of efficiency and durability.

Personally, my interests lie in the design phase and construction of structures; therefore, I aim to pursue my career in structural design and development. What fascinates me about this is the art of bringing an idea in the form of a drawing to life. This is not just about the aesthetic appeal of structures, but more about the strategies used to implement a project to its safe completion and efficiency.

Structural engineering also involves ensuring the delivered project is substantial enough and accomplishes the purpose for which it was built without putting people’s lives in danger. Buildings are more than what we see, they are actually what they do.

Combining an artistic drawing and the realistic circumstances of life (e.g., weather impacts like wind, rain, snow; climate change effects like floods, high temperatures; daily human activities, etc.) and time is fascinating and demonstrates the beauty and vastitude of the course.

Besides all that, I aspire to use the skills acquired in this course to help the needy. Building orphanages and providing a home for all those homeless and lonely children is one of my earnest desires.

If this goes further, I would like to contribute to charitable movements and put my hands on the different projects that help improve people’s lives and comfort; a bit like in “the house refurbishment” TV shows for providing a safe dwelling to those in need.

I also aspire to use the knowledge and experience I have gained to contribute to my home country Rwanda’s further development. I believe that the new technologies and different construction strategies that I have learned about in this course, and that I’ll be introduced to when I start working, will benefit my country.

I believe it’s important to always remember where we came from and link our dreams to the needs of that society. That would be my way of improving the living standards and leaving a legacy in this world by making it better, even if it’s for a few people. This will take much time and effort, but it is surely worth it.

I am glad to have chosen this course and found my passion in it, and I’m so looking forward to putting into practice everything I’ve learned.

Raissa N. Kanda

Raissa studies at ARU in Chelmsford. Find out more about Civil Engineering, and other degree courses, at one of our Open Days.