Career Advice on How to Become An Environmental Engineer |
General Career Information |
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Environmental engineering and environmental engineers are likely to receive a good deal more attention in coming years. Anyone who is in the midst of a job search or career planning, may wish to consider this interesting career that promises to address and deal with some of societies most pressing environmental issues. A career as an environmental engineer means that one is using science to tackle issues such as pollution and how to deal with waste of all sorts and kind. Increasingly, society is beginning to realize that there are extremely serious health consequences for not addressing issues of population, such as cancer, other diseases and decreasing birth rates to site just a few consequences. Becoming an environmental engineer means that one can take pride in knowing that they are personally engaged in doing something about the ecological state of the planet. In short, environmental engineers will know that they are doing their part. |
Career Facts: |
Environmental engineers spend a good deal of their time addressing issues of pollution. In order to understand what areas are polluted and to what degree, it is often necessary to get “out in the field” and collect samples that are then analyzed in the lab. Once environmental engineers have located a problem, they can recommend potential solutions. Often environmental engineers work with governments to help design solutions for both air and water pollution, and they even perform quality control checks and evaluations. |
Career Opportunities and Job Outlook- Excellent: |
| The fact that the planet is experiencing an environmental crisis translates into a serious boost in the number of new environmental engineers that will be needed between 2008 and 2018. Between those years, it is expected that there will be a thirty-one percent increase in the number of environmental engineers employed in the United States. With such a healthy job growth rate, those who are considering a career in engineering may want to give environmental engineering a look. After all, knowing that one is working to help keep air and water clean adds a level of satisfaction that most other jobs simply cannot provide. |
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A Day in The Life: |
| Environmental engineers, due to the nature of their work, are likely to spend a fair amount of time out of the office, where they will work to take samples of air, water and soil. These samples will be analyzed for contamination, and then environmental engineers can set about working to establish corrective measures. Fieldwork may require environmental engineers to be out of the office, but this is not to state that environmental engineers are never in the office. In order to properly analyze the data that they have collected, environmental engineers do in fact spend a good deal of their time conducting research and “crunching the numbers.” |
Average Salary: |
| The typical salary for an environmental engineer is about $74,000. |
$74k |
Career Training and Qualifications: |
| nvironmental engineers should expect to earn bachelor’s degrees in engineering. |
