Civil Drafter

Few Scientists can draw a beautiful picture, and few Artists can solve a complicated equation. Because they’re equal parts talented and technical, Civil Drafters are therefore a rare species of whole-brained human being.

If you’re a Civil Drafter, you use your dual talent in art and science — you have the mind of an Engineer and the skills of a Pencil Artist — to create drawings and maps for large-scale civil engineering projects, such as the construction and repair of highways, bridges, pipelines, and sewage systems.

Although an interstate is a far cry from a Picasso, you nonetheless need expert drawing skills, as it’s your job to make detailed and accurate project blueprints for above- and below-ground systems and structures. Often, you’ll do that using computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) programs, which turn two-dimensional drawings into 3-D models. Occasionally, however, you’ll do drawings by hand, which means you’ve got to be equally adept with a computer mouse and a drafting pencil.

Whether you draw by computer or by hand, you spend your days as a Civil Drafter turning rough sketches into precise plans. Along with drawing things that “look” right, therefore, you’ve got to draw things that “function” right. That is, your plans must be drawn to scale and must accurately express dimensions, materials, and procedures.

Ultimately, you’re paid to extract visions from Engineers’ heads and put them on paper in the form of schematics so Construction Workers can build them. In that sense, you’re kind of like a Medium: “Spirits” — Civil Engineers — use you to communicate their message from “the other side.”