20-Year Prospect
London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down...which stinks for the people on the bridge, but works out great for civil engineers. Nothing signals job security for this career like failing infrastructure.
And, boy, is a lot of our infrastructure failing. There was the bridge over the Mississippi River that crumpled up like a tin can and dropped rush-hour commuters into the water. There was the bridge over the Skagit River that got taken out by an 18-wheeler hauling an oversized load, justifying the fear every driver experiences any time they spot a big rig in their rearview mirror.
There's the Mountain Tunnel, which transports water from the Sierra Nevada to the millions of people in the Bay Area and might collapse at any time.
We could go on, but you get the gist: Civil engineers are going to have to put in a ton of overtime in the next twenty years to get our infrastructure back up to par.