Working part-time as an engineer?

Bob_the_Builder_5

My girlfriend is a foreign national, and is here on a student visa. This means she can work a maximum of 20 hours a week legally.

She wants to be a civil engineer. (Mind you, last week she wanted to be an accountant, God knows what next week holds.) She already has a bachelors degree in agricultural engineering.

She thinks she may have to go back to college/university.

What does the panel think?

ab7167

If she wants to be a civil engineer, then yes, she will need to go back to university. If she then wants to go on and become a chartered civil engineer, then the degree must be accredited by the Instituion of Civil Engineers, and must be a Master's degree, which is a minimum of 4 years, or 5 with a sandwich placement.

If she is doing an engineering degree, I doubt she will find much time for paid employment, I did civil engineering from 1997 to 2001 and we had 35 hours of lectures per week, and were expected to put in the same again of our own time. And it was necessary to get the work done.

I must say to balance this that it is a fantastically rewarding career! In the years since I have graduated I have worked on Terminal 5, various road and footbridge jobs, both design and site based, and am currently desigining schools for a number of county councils. The variety of projects is just fantastic. Money not fantastic, but it is certainly not badly paid. In addition, it is a skills shortage industry so she shouldn't have a problem getting a job on graduation with a decent degree.

There are other routes into engineering via HND courses etc, which would allow her to obtain Incorporated membership of the ICE, but I don't really know much about this route, less time at college though.

Hope this helps!

Ali