Zachary Department of Civil Engineering Graduates

Welcome

If you would like to contact our students there are a number of ways to do so.  After having taught most of them one or more classes and having often served as their advisor it is my personal opinion that they will make excellent employees and I highly recommend them to you.   I am always happy to serve as a reference for any of our graduates, although you may have to give me a day or two to dig out which Sally Williams is applying, and to make sure she agrees on my commenting on her skills and abilities, as per FERPA regulations.

Recruiting Options

If you are an employer and would like to recruit our students, announce your employment opportunities, or otherwise bring your company to their attention, please see the following links:

1. You can recruit our students and list employment opportunities through the University Career Center.
2. You can recruit students through the Student Engineer’s Council Career Fair.
3. You can view some of our student’s resumes by clicking on one of the Specialties shown on the right of this page.
4. If you would like to announce general corporate information or employment opportunities and be contacted directly by those students who feel they are qualified, you  can mail me a hard copy of the information, which I will post to our listserv:

   Lee Lowery, Jr.
   Zachry Department of Civil Engineering
   Texas A&M University
   College Station, TX 77843
   or call me at (979)845-4395

5. You can also email me at lowery@tamu.edu and I will forward it to our listserv. Acrobat or Word attachments are acceptable. This is probably the most effective since the email goes directly to the student, rather than waiting for them to check a job list on a web site somewhere. In any case, please be sure to note how and to whom you want them to reply. Thus something like “No phone calls please. Email resumes to Resumes@JKE.snook.tx.gov putting EIT Position #2445 in the subject line” or “Applicants can email me directly at mymail@…” would be fine.  We will be glad to include phone numbers, but you might consider getting calls on your cell phone while driving in Houston traffic.
6. Note that our listserv goes out to both current and former students. Students who still have a year or so to go like to know what’s going on in the job market, students graduating now are looking for jobs, and students who graduated years ago and have years of experience may be looking for other opportunities or a change in scenery.
7. You can set up a meeting with one of the student organizations to talk with their members. Contact the groups listed below to see if they have openings.  Please note that it isn’t easy to set up such meetings, since the groups have a limited number of available meetings, and they do not meet during the summer.  A list of all our student chapters and contact information can be found on theStudent Organization page, or you can click on the following:

   ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers (J.T.L. McNew Chapter)
   American Concrete Institute – Texas A&M University
   Texas A&M University Student Chapter of the American Water Resources Association
   Association of Environmental Engineering Students
   Chi Epsilon
   Civil Materials Students Organization
   Engineers Without Borders
   Institute of Transportation Engineers
   Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists
   Texas A&M Student Section of the Structural Engineers Association of Texas

   or click here for more contacts.

8. If you have an internship opportunity that you would like to announce, you can use the Career Center Internship Page or list it on the Civil Engineering Department’s Internship Page.
9. If you would like to set up a co-op position, please refer to the Career Center Co-op Page or contact Brad Collet at 979-845-7725 who works with our Co-op students.
10. Speaking to students on campus or interviewing students at any time – The university requires that this be scheduled only through the Career Center. Tell them you would like to reserve a room for your company. They will ask your company name (they distribute the load alphabeticlally) and forward you to a scheduling coordinator to discuss times and dates available. You can reserve rooms to meet in the Rudder Tower, and perhaps other buildings. They will try to assign you to the Civil Engineering building upon your request, which you may want to do, since attendance will obviously be better if the students don’t have to truck across campus. They will have to call the department to see if a room is open.
11. Speaking with students off-campus – You can always set up your own informal get-together over lunch or just to meet off campus with interested students to discuss your company and job opportunities. We are happy to forward such proposals through the listserv. A typical request might read:

    “Johnson Engineering, a 200 person engineering company located in Snook, TX would like to have lunch and discuss employment opportunities with A&M Civil Engineering students. If you are interested in learning more about working with us, please email your name to the address below and we will contact you with more information. We are particularly interested in students graduating within the next year in either structures or construction, and who have a desire to take on large responsibilities early in their careers.
    Johnson Engineering designs, builds, and inspects … (etc.)”

    One thing about such get-togethers, students don’t always take them as seriously as they should. If they say they will be there they try, but they don’t think that not showing up is as serious as, say, missing a scheduled interview. Thus it is a good idea to keep in close contact with anyone who says they are coming, with a reminder the day of the meeting, or you may find half of them forgot. Since the University allows such meetings at University facilities only with their involvement (see step 11 above), you would have to contact someone in the local area to reserve a meeting room if very many students want to attend.

12. One engineering company has set up a satellite office here in town and hires our students as interns to work here during the semester. They assign Professional Engineers to work with them several days a week and guide them through work normally performed at their home office. They say they have had great success with this model. It gives the students much needed funding and experience, lets the company look over the student, and familiarizes the student with their company.
13. We are always happy to meet with companies who would like to discuss employing our students, although after every meeting we invariably both end up at the same point – you’ve got jobs and we’ve got fresh, bright, hard-working engineers in training. They are green, but in a year or two they will more than pull their weight in your company. Was the meeting a waste? Not at all, since we both met some very interesting people. But hopefully that was the purpose of the meeting because the minute you called or emailed us, and long before you took a day off and paid for the travel, you already had our undivided attention along with complete access to our students.
14. For employers wishing to list employment opportunities at the university level, pleaseclick here.  You are also encouraged to visit hireaggies.com and post your openings through our career center’s service.  It is easy and quick to set up an account and post a job, and this will give you the greatest exposure to our current and former students as the vast majority of them use this site as part of their job hunt toolbox.
15. For those wishing to list internships, please see ourCE Engineering Internships website.

Will we keep you in mind and make sure that the students always know you are interested and how they can contact you?  Yes.  Will we happily forward anything you send us regarding your company and potential employment to them?  Absolutely.  Several times a year?  Gladly.

That being said, every possible way of contacting them and convincing them to come work with you is pretty much spelled out above. As you see, I show up around #4, namely, call or send me whatever you would like to tell the students and I will forward it to them. Permanent employment information is sent to students close to graduation. Co-op or internship offers go to all students. Jobs requiring years of experience go to several hundred previous graduates just looking around to see what’s out there, or considering moving out of California before it burns down or slips into the sea.  Or both.

OTHER HELPFUL INFORMATION 

Federal Regulations and privacy laws prevent us from releasing almost any information regarding our students without their express consent.

Typical salary information for Civil Engineering students can be found here. Scroll down to “Engineering”, “Civil”.

Contact information for any student or professor on campus is available through the University Directory Search website.

This site is updated by Dr. Lee L. Lowery, Jr.