Incorporating Software Instruction into a Civil Engineering Curriculum

This paper contains the results of a survey of almost 43% of all the private civil engineering firms and government agencies in the state of Mississippi. The survey was focused primarily on the use of software and their thoughts on the software knowledge of new college graduates hired at each place of business. There were three key issues the survey focused on: computer programs used, software proficiencies of new college graduates, and the benefits of prior software knowledge. The paper presents the survey results and analyzes the trends in order to discover what civil engineering firms do and want. Also in this paper, methods of integrating software into a typical civil engineering curriculum are explored. Overall, it was found that several programs were constant in all of the firms, and that even though software knowledge is not required to land a job, it certainly is beneficial