The Civil engineering program at Waterloo is both challenging and fulfilling, with a great deal of flexibility: students get to customize their degree with a large number of technical electives in structural, transportation, geotechnical, and water/environmental engineering. Of course, the co-op advantage is here, too: students can work in a number of different organization to determine what 'flavour' of civil engineering employment they like best, all while learning critical on-the-job skills.

Civil engineers design and maintain the massive infrastructure which today's society depends upon: roads, buildings, bridges, dams, tunnels, levees, sewer systems, and water treatment plants. Guiding the future of our infrastructure, Civil Engineers currently direct the spending of more than one tenth of Canada's gross national product, more than any other professional group. Because Civil Engineers' primary client is society, we often must deal with the human impact of engineering, including social, moral, and legal issues. Civil Engineering is an extremely diverse field with many areas of application. The subfields of civil engineering include, amongst others: Structural Engineering Infrastructure Management and Construction Water Resources Engineering Transportation Engineering Geotechnical Engineering Engineering Mechanics The Civil Engineer, regardless of whether she or he is a generalist or a specialist, draws heavily upon the work of the physical and social sciences, other professions and other branches of engineering. Moreover, as engineers have become involved in many interdisciplinary activities over the last decade, the job demarcation between boundaries of engineering has become much less restrictive. People with the strong quantitative problem solving skills provided by a Civil engineering degree are sought after in fields ranging from urban planning to banking to business administration.