Civil engineers design, build and maintain the built environment — bridges, buildings, roads, water and wastewater systems, ports, drainage and coastal works. ⚠ It is the engineering discipline where a Professional Engineer licence matters most: much of the work legally requires one, because civil engineers sign off on things that fail publicly.
Licensure and accreditation
⚠⚠ READ THIS FIRST — for civil engineering the PE licence is not optional in the way it is elsewhere. Structural, site, water and transportation work is generally sealed by a licensed engineer, so a PE is a normal condition of advancement rather than a nice extra. Under s. 471.013(1)(a), Florida Statutes: a graduate of an approved ENGINEERING curriculum needs FOUR years of active engineering experience; a graduate of an approved ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY curriculum needs SIX. The route is an ABET-accredited degree, the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam — sit it in your final year — certification as an Engineer Intern, the experience under a PE, then the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam. Governed by Chapter 471, F.S. and Chapter 61G15, F.A.C.; administered by the Florida Board of Professional Engineers. ⚠ Because the licence is close to mandatory here, the four-versus-six-year difference costs more in this discipline than in any other — choose the ENGINEERING curriculum.
What the work actually is
O*NET’s task statements describe it plainly: direct engineering activities ensuring compliance with environmental, safety and other governmental regulations; manage construction, operations and maintenance at the project site; inspect sites to monitor progress and conformance to design specifications; compute load and grade requirements, water flow rates and material stress factors; plan and design transportation or hydraulic systems using computer-aided design; and test soils and materials to determine the adequacy and strength of foundations, concrete, asphalt and steel.
⚠ Note how much of that is regulation, inspection and site work rather than calculation. Civil engineering is the discipline most bound up with codes, permits and public accountability, and students who expect pure design are often surprised by how much of it is negotiating with the physical world and with authorities.
Projected need
O*NET, on federal projections: 368,900 civil engineers employed (2024) — the largest of the engineering disciplines on this site — growth projected “faster than average” (5–6%) through 2034, and about 23,600 openings a year. Median pay $100,840 ($48.48 an hour), 2025.
⚠ 86% of survey respondents reported a bachelor’s degree as the requirement — the firmest of any path on this site, and consistent with a discipline whose entry is governed by accreditation and licensure rather than by portfolio.
Why Florida is a particular case
Florida concentrates civil engineering demand in ways few states do: sustained population growth and construction; a transportation programme run by the Florida Department of Transportation and its districts; coastal and storm-surge work; water supply, drainage and wastewater in a state that is flat, porous and low-lying; and building design governed by the Florida Building Code, whose wind-load provisions are among the most demanding in the country. Structural and coastal work in Florida is not generic structural work — hurricane loading and flood elevation are design drivers here in a way they are not in most of the United States.
⚠⚠ Coastal and ocean work is civil engineering here
Florida has more coastline than any state but Alaska, and the work that follows it — beach nourishment, inlets and ports, seawalls and revetments, storm surge and now sea-level planning — is done overwhelmingly by civil engineers with a coastal specialisation rather than by graduates of a separate degree.
⚠ The numbers are the reason, and they are worth knowing before you go looking for an ocean engineering programme. Two Florida public institutions award in ocean engineering and only Florida Atlantic awards the bachelor’s; the University of Florida is graduate-only. The course catalogue says the same thing from the other side: FAU’s ocean engineering courses are carried by FAU alone, and the state’s only other coastal cluster — coastal processes, wave mechanics, coastal and estuarine hydrodynamics — sits at UNF, one carrier each.
So the ordinary route into coastal engineering in Florida is this degree. Take the water-resources sequence, take hydraulics and groundwater seriously, and specialise afterwards — through a master’s, or on the job with a coastal consultancy, a port authority, a water management district or the Army Corps. ⚠ If you want the coastal courses as an undergraduate, that is a reason to look at UNF or FAU specifically; it is not a reason to rule out civil engineering anywhere else.
Necessary skills
- Mechanics you can trust. Statics, strength of materials and structural analysis are the spine. Unlike some disciplines, the calculations are directly load-bearing: a mistake shows up in the world.
- Judgement about materials and ground. Soil is variable, concrete is not uniform, and the site is never quite the drawing. Geotechnical work is the discipline’s standing lesson in uncertainty.
- Codes and standards as working tools — ACI, AISC, AASHTO, ASCE 7 and the Florida Building Code. Learning to use a code, not memorise it, is a distinct skill.
- CAD and civil software: AutoCAD Civil 3D, Revit, and structural analysis packages. ⚠ The same caution as everywhere — a model returns a confident number whether or not the input made sense.
- Writing and negotiation. Reports, permits, and explaining a constraint to a client or a board. Civil engineers spend more time in public meetings than most engineers expect.
Advice
- Confirm ABET accreditation and the commission at amspub.abet.org. Given how central the licence is here, the Engineering accreditation is effectively a requirement rather than a preference.
- Sit the FE in your final year. In civil engineering this is not optional advice — deferring it is the single most common way people slow their own careers.
- Get site experience, not only office experience. An internship where you have walked a site, seen a pour and watched a survey crew teaches things no course does.
- Choose a sub-discipline late, not early. Structural, geotechnical, water resources, transportation, construction and coastal all share the first two years. Use the intervening courses to find out which one you actually like.
- If you are starting at a Florida state college, follow the published engineering transfer track and confirm exact course numbers in writing — the civil sequence is tightly chained, so a mis-substituted course costs a term.
A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it
covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that
awarded a credential in the field in 2023;
it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different
from the course-based list further down.
Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification
(ENGINEERING) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in.
⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and
expensive late.
Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on.
A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own
institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.
MAC2311
—Calculus I
Guide
Calculus I — the gate on the degree.
⚠ ⚠ Transfer is guaranteed only on the COMPLETED calculus sequence. Finish it at one institution where you can.
MAC2312
—Calculus with Analytic Geometry II
Guide
Calculus II — integration and series, used throughout structural and hydraulic analysis.
MAC2313
—Calculus with Analytic Geometry III
Guide
Calculus III — multivariable methods; distributed loads, moments of inertia and flow fields.
MAP2302
—Differential Equations
Guide
Differential Equations — beam deflection, groundwater flow and dynamic response are all differential equations.
PHY2048
—General Physics with Calculus I
Guide
Physics with Calculus I — mechanics, and the direct foundation of statics.
PHY2049
—General Physics with Calculus II
Guide
Physics with Calculus II — required by most programmes; electrical systems appear in building and treatment-plant work.
CHM2045
—General Chemistry I
Guide
General Chemistry I — the basis of concrete chemistry, corrosion, water treatment and environmental work.
⚠ ⚠⚠ FLORIDA NUMBERS GENERAL CHEMISTRY TWO WAYS, AND NO INSTITUTION CARRIES BOTH. Twenty public institutions use CHM2045 (or the integrated CHM2045C); nineteen use CHM1045 (or CHM1045C) — among them Florida State, Florida A&M, FIU, FGCU, Broward, Miami Dade, Valencia, Daytona State, Eastern Florida State, Gulf Coast, Indian River State, Northwest Florida State, Palm Beach State, Pensacola State, Polk State, St. Johns River State, Tallahassee State, North Florida and Florida Keys. Same course, same lower-division level, and the credit articulates either way — but ⚠⚠ LOOK UP WHICH FAMILY YOUR INSTITUTION USES BEFORE YOU GO SEARCHING, because the other number simply does not exist there. ⚠ Also check the packaging: the bare number is a 3-credit lecture needing a separate CHM2045L (or CHM1045L) laboratory, while the C form is the integrated lecture-plus-lab at 4 credits and is one registration.
STA2023
—Elementary Statistics
Guide
Statistics — materials testing, quality control and risk are statistical; hydrology is explicitly probabilistic.
Statics — forces in equilibrium. The first true civil engineering course and the foundation of everything structural.
EGN3331C
—Mechanics of Materials
Guide
Strength of Materials — stress, strain, deflection and failure; where a member is sized and checked.
EGN3365
—Structure and Properties of Materials
Guide
Structure and Properties of Materials — why steel, concrete and soil behave as they do.
EGN3353C
—Fluid Mechanics
Guide
Fluid Mechanics — pressure and flow, the basis of hydraulics, drainage and coastal work.
⚠ ⚠⚠ FLUID MECHANICS IS THE MOST FRAGMENTED NUMBER IN FLORIDA ENGINEERING, and this identifier is carried by ONE institution. The same course runs under five numbers across two prefixes: EGN3353C (UF), EGN3353 (USF), CWR3201 (FAMU, FIU, Florida State, UCF, UF, UNF, UWF), CWR3201C (FAU, Florida Gulf Coast) and EML3701 (FAU, UCF, USF). ⚠ Broadly, CWR is the civil and environmental route, EML the mechanical route and EGN the general-engineering one — but several institutions carry more than one, and UF carries both EGN3353C and CWR3201. The C suffix marks the integrated lecture-plus-laboratory form; it is the same course, packaged as one registration instead of two. LOOK UP WHICH NUMBER YOUR PROGRAMME USES rather than searching for this one, and on transfer send the syllabus, because an evaluator matching identifiers across these five will find nothing to match.
EGN3613
—Principles of Engineering Economy
Guide
Engineering Economic Analysis — life-cycle cost and alternative comparison, which is how public infrastructure decisions are justified. An FE exam topic.
CGN2328C
—Technical Drawing and Visualization
Guide
Technical Drawing and Visualization — reading and producing the drawings that construction is actually built from.
CGN3501C
—Civil Engineering Materials
Guide
Civil Engineering Materials — concrete, asphalt, steel and aggregates, with the laboratory testing that goes with them.
CES3100C
—Structural Analysis
Guide
Determinate Structural Analysis — trusses, beams and frames; the analysis every structural course after it assumes.
CES4605C
—Steel Design
Guide
Structural Steel Design — designing members and connections to the AISC specification.
CES4702C
—Design of Reinforced Concrete
Guide
Reinforced Concrete Design — designing to ACI 318. ⚠ In Florida this is where wind and coastal exposure become design drivers.
CEG3011C
—Soil Mechanics
Guide
Soil Mechanics — the geotechnical foundation course. ⚠ Florida's sand, limestone and high water table make this less theoretical here than almost anywhere.
Hydraulics — engineering fluid mechanics applied to pipes, channels and pumps.
⚠ ⚠⚠ FIVE NUMBERS FOR THIS SUBJECT ACROSS FLORIDA, and this is the one seven institutions use: CWR3201 at FAMU, FIU, Florida State, UCF, UF, UNF and UWF. FAU and Florida Gulf Coast carry the integrated CWR3201C; UF also carries EGN3353C, USF carries EGN3353, and FAU, UCF and USF carry EML3701 on the mechanical side. ⚠ The titles vary as much as the numbers — Hydraulics at Florida State, Fluid Mechanics at FIU and UNF, Engineering Fluid Mechanics at UCF, Hydrodynamics at UF, Water Resource Engineering at UWF — and the statewide description is plain fluid mechanics throughout. Register by the number your own programme names.
CWR4202
—Hydraulic Engineering I
Request a guide
Hydraulics Engineering — open-channel flow, drainage and stormwater design, which is a central and constant Florida problem.
⚠ ⚠⚠ TWO NUMBERS, AND THIS IS THE ONE SEVEN INSTITUTIONS USE. CWR4202 is carried by FAMU, FAU, Florida Polytechnic, Florida State, UF, USF and UWF; UCF and UNF carry the integrated CWR4202C instead, and no institution carries both. Same course — the C form simply packages the laboratory into one registration — so the credit articulates either way. ⚠ But an evaluator or degree audit matching on the identifier reads the two as different courses, so say which form you took and send the syllabus.
CWR4001
—Introduction to Coastal & Port Engineering
Request a guide
Introduction to Coastal and Port Engineering — waves, sediment transport, shoreline structures and the design of ports. ⚠ The clearest undergraduate entry into the coastal work Florida has more of than any other state.
⚠ ⚠⚠ COASTAL TEACHING IN FLORIDA IS CONCENTRATED, NOT DISTRIBUTED. This course is carried by UNF alone, and so is the rest of its cluster there — CWR4006 Coastal Processes, CWR4024 Coastal and Estuarine Hydrodynamics and CWR4550 Water Wave Mechanics. FAU teaches the subject inside its ocean engineering degree under the EOC prefix, which no other institution carries, and FAMU has CWR4822 Coastal and Estuarine Hydraulics. ⚠ Everywhere else the material is reached through a master's or on the job — which is how most practising coastal engineers in Florida got there.
TTE3004C
—Introduction to Transportation Engineering
Guide
Transportation Engineering — traffic, geometry and planning; the gateway to FDOT and consultancy work.
TTE4804
—Highway Geometric Design
Guide
Highway Geometric Design — alignment and cross-section design to AASHTO standards.
39 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is
how many of the 24 listed courses each one carries — it shows where
the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a
degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.
Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before
committing to a route.