Civil Technology - Municipal Engineering Specialization

Before a new Brandon subdivision gets its first house, someone has to design the streets, the storm drainage and the water mains beneath them. Assiniboine’s Civil Technology - Municipal Engineering Specialization is a two-year diploma that trains the technologists behind that design work. It is taught as a cohort at the Victoria Avenue East campus in Brandon and builds directly on Assiniboine’s Civil Technician certificate, which is the entry requirement.

The municipal engineering courses are organised in two groups. Group A covers Calculus and Statistics, Geotechnical Materials 1, Hydromatics, Terrain Analysis, Roadway Design 1, Municipal Computer Apps and Project Administration, giving you the maths, soils knowledge and road geometry that municipal design depends on. Group B moves into Geotechnical Materials 2, Pavement Mix Design, Roadway Design 2, Hydrology, Water and Waste, and Economics/Management, then ends with an Applied Research Project where you investigate a real civil engineering question from start to finish.

A paid co-op term sits inside the diploma: Co-op Work Placement requires at least 480 hours of full-time, related work, normally 16 weeks, approved and monitored by a faculty member. In class you draft and model with AutoCAD and Land Development Desktop, and schedule projects in Microsoft Project, so you need your own Windows laptop because Mac devices do not run the programme software. Assiniboine also holds articulation agreements that can carry these credits to other colleges and universities.

Graduates of the Civil Technology municipal specialization move into roles such as municipal design technologist, structural design technologist, construction estimator, technical representative and construction supervisor, and with experience, project manager. Assiniboine names consulting engineering firms, civil construction and surveying firms, quality control laboratories and municipal government departments as typical employers. The diploma suits Civil Technician graduates who enjoy both the office side of roadway and water design and the site side of testing soils and pavement.