Hello Hajith Kumar,

The problem with Civil Engineering education in India, is the fact that we have a single undergraduate program which caters to the entire infrastructure and construction sectors, i.e. B.Tech (Civil Engineering), whereas in most developed countries, and even in countries like Sri Lanka, there are specialized undergraduate courses like

BSc (Quantity Surveying)

BSc (Construction Engineering)

BS (Real Estate)

BSc (Surveying)

And the usual BSc (Civil & Environmental Engineering)

So, a person who is not interested in subjects related to design, can opt for degrees focussing more on practical aspects of Civil Engineering, like Construction, Site Management, Surveying, etc.

The B.Tech/B.E. (Civil Engineering) degree in India, tries to teach all the subjects related various specializations, in 4 years, so most graduates are jack of all trades master of none. And inevitably, one seeking specialization knowledge has to opt for post graduate courses. And most of the subjects are design related, where sthe number of design related jobs are the least in the industry. Some example of design related courses are -

Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures

Design of Steel Structures

Transportation Design

Geotechnical Design

Design of Irrigation Design

Environmental Design

Almost 10–15 subjects out of a total of 30–36 subjects are design related. So the curriculum is heavily skewed towards design related subjects, no wonder most fresh graduaes of civil engineering want only design job profiles and don't want to work on site.

The industry-academia interaction in most colleges is absent. Leading to a significant gap between employers’ demands/expectations and graduates' ability/skills.

Most companies want candidates with a minimum industry experience of 2 years. So for the first two years, graduates are not placed in jobs, but rather internships/apprenticeships, even though the designation is similar to 'assistant engineer/junior engineer'.

For my recent internship, I had applied personally and also via our training and placement department. I applied via email, sent a soft copy of my CV, attached to the email. My internship and terms of engagement were confirmed within a month.

Now on the second day of the internship, my supervisor at the internship summoned me to his office, in his hands was a letter from my university, which was sent via ordinance post, yes you heard it right, ordinary post. And that was sent 2 months prior to the date of commencement of the internship. I was red faced, due to the embarrassment. This is the level of sophistication of Indian Engineering colleges, especially a State Government University like mine. It's the first and oldest Engineering college in the state of Odisha, still, they are stuck using snail mail for official communication. And I was interning in the Guwahati office of the company, the people at the T&P department of the university didn't even bother to calculate how much time it would take for a letter to reach Guwahati, Assam from Burla, Odisha via ordinary post.

No wonder, the industry academia interaction is so poor, in most of the engineering colleges in India.

So, a normal graduate of Civil Engineering

has an outdated degree which is out of sync with the industries' demands/expectations

has very little knowledge about practical application of the subjects taught

Lacks soft skills like fluency in Spoken English, MS Excel and MS Word.

Why would anyone hire a fresh graduate ? But companies which have enough resources and commitment, do hire fresh graduates, train them and do pay salaries at par with other gradutaes of other engineering disciplines, after a couple of years of experience.

Our supervisor at the recent internship, talked about the aimless/goalless attitude of engineering graduates. People in the industry are disappointed with people who join B.Tech/B.E (Civil Engineering) just because they couldn't get a branch of their preference at a better institution, they are also find the 'I don't want to work, but want a high salary' attitude of fresh graduates, very disgusting.

Most students who join B.Tech/B.E. (Civil Engineering) don't do it out of their own interest, they just want to get into engineering, or because they didn't get their preferred branch in a better institution. Then after getting admitted, they have a herd mentality of 'If I keep my CGPA above <insert a number between 7 and 10 here> I will get a good high paying job' The emphasis here is on CGPA, not practical knowledge.

Another thing most people don't know about the Civil Engineering industry, is that Engineers when sent to site for site visits, are paid 'per diem' which is essentially a daily wage, but higher than the effective daily wage, which civil engineers are paid when not working at the site. A civil engineer who visits sites for three months in a year, can survive on the per diem paid for the months spent working at site, without having to touch his monthly salary. Most fresh graduates don't know this and hopelessly join IT services based companies, mass recruiters or sit at home preparing for ‘sarkari naukri's instead of joining a core company and gaining on site experience. But I do agree, the industry does discriminate against female civil engineers, but that is true only for on-site job profiles.

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From my experience in talking to and pitching ( around 150 companies) different civil engineering firms you can expect a maximum of 6 lpa from a pure Structural Engineering Consultancy, 7.5 lpa from companies in offshore, oil and gas domain, 5.5- 6 lpa in infrastructure based firms where you would do management work. Average salary package in a tier 1 institute would be around 5 lpa.

You can't expect a package higher than that because huge amount of money is invested in Construction activities and lives of people is at stake, so companies can't risk giving big projects to a fresher who has only theoretical knowledge with no prior practical experience, hence less package in the beginning. But with experience your package will increase exponentially.

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For more information about Civil Engineering - Core subjects, Fee, Top Recruiters please visit this link:

Here is the link:

Civil Engineering - Core subjects, Fee, Top Recruiters:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/engineering.careers360.com/articles/civil-engineering-1/amp

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Hope this helps...

Thank you and all the best...

HI Hajith,

POst Complete question, Which college or university placement of civil branch are you asking about.Please  provide full detail so i can assist you better.

thanks.

We are very thankful that you preferred career 360 for all your queries related to studies. No you cannot get a job  before starting the college but yes maybe in third year you can . Hope you are satisfied with the answer. Thank You!