[sidibe]

Also CE->SWE here, if you are criticising these issues in the software world you will hate being a civil engineer. While they are in some corners of software development, it's basically all there is in civil engineering.

Civil engineering is already figured out. In the first world, what you are supposed to do for most situations is not only almost entirely mapped out but is actual regulations. That's great for society, but there is just no stimulation for CEs. In the first world, being a civil engineer is mostly about knowing and keeping up with the the rules (which is a feat in itself considering how many organizations are involved and how scattered the information is), applying them, sending drafts to clients/regulators/etc. and waiting for weeks for responses.

[nashashmi]

Wow! You just brought back memories of a line in a paper I wrote my first week in Civil Engineering college ... "a boring field that is 1000 years old where all opportunities of innovation has already occurred". But when I was thinking of going into CoE or CS the dot com bubble burst and I had to reconsider.