Areas of Emphasis

The Civil Engineering program at University of Wisconsin-Platteville will prepare you with a solid foundation in all technical areas and requires at least one emphasis from those listed.

Construction

As a construction engineer, you'll use both technical and management skills to bring public and private projects to life. Use your technical expertise, critical thinking skills, and financial insight to determine the equipment, personnel, and methods needed to turn a blueprint into a building; a road into a highway; a vacant lot into a playground facility. In this rewarding career, you'll use your entire toolkit of technical knowledge and critical thinking skills every day, and no two days are the same.

Environmental Engineering

If you want to protect the environment while positively influencing public health, environmental engineering is for you. Environmental engineers are the earth's first line of defense against air and water pollution, and make sure cities have safe drinking water, functioning sewers, and clean air. Use cutting-edge technology to mitigate the impacts of energy production and agriculture on surrounding ecosystems; to minimize and detoxify hazardous waste from industry; and to ensure millions in underdeveloped regions have access to clean, safe drinking water. 

Geotechnical Engineering

From foundations to abutments, retaining walls to slopes, and landfills to levees, geotechnical engineers build the foundations of lives. Dig deeper, discover the properties and potential of the soil and rock underlying infrastructure projects. As a geotechnical engineer, you'll ensure any project built on or with soil is safe from earthquakes, erosion, flooding, and other natural threats.

Municipal Engineering

As a municipal engineer, you'll keep the heart of a city beating. From streets and sidewalks to lighting and water supply, municipal engineers ensure public infrastructure serves residents smoothly and efficiently. From the underground utility networks that keep the lights on, to the water and sewer networks that move millions of gallons daily, you'll get an up-close view of a city's moving parts that most people never see.

Structural Engineering

Structural engineers ensure a structure can withstand forces and pressures that affect it. And since they help build everything from railroad bridges to stadiums, offshore oil rigs to skyscrapers, those forces and pressures can be titanic. Applied mathematics and mechanics, materials science, and a detailed knowledge of design codes compose the toolkit that you'll use daily, keeping people safe by keeping structures sound. 

Transportation Engineering

As a transportation engineer, you'll keep the world moving. From timing a stoplight at a city intersection to designing the optimal route for a new light-rail system, you'll analyze data and create efficient solutions for ground, sea, and air travel. Within this broad and varied field, use sophisticated forecasting methods to anticipate traveler needs, civil engineering theory to determine the composition and design of roadways, social science to understand how people and products move, and business models to predict future usage patterns. From ports and harbors to the nation's airports, transportation engineers can be found anywhere people and products are moving.