3 answers
Joy
Student
1
Question
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What jobs can I get with a degree in environmental engineering?
What jobs can I get with a degree in environmental engineering
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3 answers
Clarissa Escamilla
Geological Engineer
27
Answers
Mesa, Arizona
Updated
Clarissa’s Answer
Hi! There’s lots of different things you can do with a degree in environmental engineering. I work in the mining industry and every company hires environmental engineers, there’s also consulting companies that hire them too (consulting does a wide variety of projects from mining all the way to civil works, pretty much anything that disturbs the ground requires and environmental engineer to sign off on) My husband worked as an environmental engineer in the mining industry and monitored the mining companies for compliance to government policies, managed the water use, wrote permit applications, and monitored the air quality and found ways to improve how the mine did things.
Donald Windeler
Engineer
16
Answers
Rockwood, Michigan
Updated
Donald’s Answer
The jobs that come to mind are corporate environmental staff, consulting, regulatory and research and development.
As a corporate environmental engineer you would have a number of duties including assessing current environmental problems, training personnel and management on how to accomplish compliance, monitoring compliance, and evaluating new processes and equipment so that compliance can be maintained maintained.
As a consultant, you would do many of the same functions although typically you would not have training or compliance responsibilities. Over time, a consultant would typically deal with several different facilities and companies rather than working for a single company for several years.
A regulatory career would likely begin with field activities. Monitoring compliance of various facilities and investigating complaints or observed problems and incidents. With experience this would expand to writing permits, supervising field personnel and negotiating compliance settlement.
Research and development might occur in any of the three proceeding fields and would be just that; identifying problems as they develop, identifying new solutions to existing problems, analyzing the source of health effects and preparing a regulatory structure to control the sources.
My comments on the last two fields are based on observation rather than experience, and thus somewhat incomplete.
My next step would be to identify at least 10, 20 is better, companies that have environmental impacts on the community and send a letter to the human resources office asking if they have any environmental internships, or would consider setting up one. Just state your intent in an environmental engineering engineering career, with with one or two short lines, very short lines, describing your existing education. Resumes and long letters get discarded; Short notes are more likely to be read.
As a corporate environmental engineer you would have a number of duties including assessing current environmental problems, training personnel and management on how to accomplish compliance, monitoring compliance, and evaluating new processes and equipment so that compliance can be maintained maintained.
As a consultant, you would do many of the same functions although typically you would not have training or compliance responsibilities. Over time, a consultant would typically deal with several different facilities and companies rather than working for a single company for several years.
A regulatory career would likely begin with field activities. Monitoring compliance of various facilities and investigating complaints or observed problems and incidents. With experience this would expand to writing permits, supervising field personnel and negotiating compliance settlement.
Research and development might occur in any of the three proceeding fields and would be just that; identifying problems as they develop, identifying new solutions to existing problems, analyzing the source of health effects and preparing a regulatory structure to control the sources.
My comments on the last two fields are based on observation rather than experience, and thus somewhat incomplete.
Donald recommends the following next steps:
Davis Turner
4
Answers
Orange, Texas
Updated
Davis’s Answer
Lot's of opportunities for Environmental Engineers in the chemical industry. Here are some examples of efforts underway that you could be part of: https://www.cpchem.com/sustainability