What exactly does a civil engineer do?

Civil Engineers become involved in a wide variety of projects. If you pursue an engineering degree in college you will need to pick a specific field to major in during the second half of your college career, but that is just for college and does not preclude you from working in other areas during your career.

In my career I was involved in the design and construction of highways, roadways, freeways, toll roads, local streets, airport improvements, water distribution networks, irrigation systems, wastewater and water treatment facilities, wastewater collection and storm drainage systems, site development projects, and structural and hydraulic analyses for underground piping systems. There are many other areas such as water quality analysis, structural design of bridges or buildings, mass transit improvements, material design and analysis, geotechnical engineering, life cycle analysis for projects and probably dozens of other areas.

As you can see the field of civil engineering provides opportunities to work in many different types of projects and areas that impact the daily life of all individuals.

If you like math and design then engineering is a great fit for you and a great career path. Civil Engineers can work on an array of projects. The more traditional fields have been structural design like designing buildings, bridges and highways. There are other specializations like environmental engineering, traffic engineering as well as designing tunnels and ports. My advice is to read up on various fields and get immersed in some hands on work. You can look at blue prints, read up on how to use AutoCAD and surveying. The more acquainted you get with the field, the easier it will be for you to get involved or decide if you like it!