Getting on top of a soapbox, he says, "The time to get ready for the future is now!"  

In this day and age, it can be argued that many aspects of our daily lives, culture and economy are changing at a very rapid pace. It isn't hard to point out objects, activities, and habits that weren't around ten or twenty years ago.  How about computer games (We see you, those of you in the dorms playing Quake.)?  Or checking email twice a day?  Laptop computers?  Telecommuting?  They weren't around.  Neither were micro- and nano-devices for biomedical applications.  How about using thermoset composites like carbon fiber and Kevlar in infrastructure applications? 

What does this have to do with anything?  

These things are changing the way civil engineers do business and what business they do.  For instance, e-mail has dramatically changed the way a design or construction firm communicates within itself and with others.  In an ongoing project that is studying the Northridge Earthquake of 1994, only four of two hundred project participants do not have e-mail access.  And, instead of email, they have a fax machine that picks up the slack. Similar things have happened and are happening with analysis and management of water ways, transporation technology, and environmental modelling.  And more changes are sure to come. 

Someone who is thinking ahead:

On the right is Kai Wang, an undergraduate researcher and assistant to Prof. Astaneh. He is currently posed in front of a beam-column connection (with a slab) that is being broken as a part of the SAC Steel Project.  If you ask Kai, he might tell you that his research job sometimes involves filing papers and handling correspondence.  But he is gaining references and contacts while working on a testing program that could only be performed at a major university.  (By the way, the column should be standing vertical.  Oops.)  

Enough of this.  Here's what we have to help:  

So, we want you to be thinking about the future and the role that you want to play in it.  Your future.  That's what Chapter 7: Getting Ready for the Future is all about.  We have the Engineering Cooperative Education Program, which will give you a taste of what it will be like to have a job in your field, some information on Professional Licenses, a page on Getting a Job, another on Going to Graduate School, and a little something about Graduate Research Fellowships.