Civil Communication

Greetings, my name is James Jackson. I am a junior Civil Engineering major, thinking about double majoring in Economics. After school, I would like to design buildings. I am an avid gamer, currently trying to secure the independence of Spain in the Peninsular War scenario in AGEoD’s Napoleon’s Campaigns.

Communication is an important part of Civil Engineering (if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be taking this course, now would I?). The main goal of our communication is to transfer information without error. The firm, the client, and the contractor must be in constant contact, to make sure the building being built conforms to the client’s expectations, and to the blueprints the engineers have devised. In addition the more mundane forms of communication (e-mail, memos, yelling angrily down the hall, etc.), engineering firms use drawings and 3D models to show the client a basic idea of what their structure will look like, and to allow for feedback from the client. Additionally, engineers create blueprints, with a specific convention, so the contractor constructs the building correctly. Effective communication lets the client make sure they are getting a two story Bungalow, rather than a two story Victorian, and make sure the contractor doesn’t put a door where a load bearing column should go.

Thus, an engineer would need to be able to make basic sketches, work a computer, and draft blueprints. The most important communication skill, however, would be communicating with the laity. Discussing structure design in totally technical terms will garner a large amount of blank stares, so an effective communicator must know where to explain their terms and problems, and where to say “it’s long, complex, and doesn’t really matter”. Buckling, where a column fails by bowing outward and snapping, is a simple concept to explain. The difference between statically determinate and statically indeterminate situations, on the other hand, only matters if the listener understands statics.