<p>OK, the job market at present is poor. Engineering is cyclical - there will always be good times and bad times. If CE is what you were meant to do, then stick with it, show your passion, and eventually you’ll get hired. The ‘airhead’ who considered switching majors from civil engineering to construction management might be very happy, eventually, in construction management, once he or she is hired. It’s not like construction is going to end forever.</p>
<p>OP, you need to make regular appearances at the career center, starting now, to get your resume in shape, to learn which companies recruit through your school, and to learn what other companies might be interested in kids like you but who don’t actually appear at your school. Maybe a low-glamor company only needs one or two people - are they going to set up multiple interviews at Northwestern?? Get some books from the library to get ideas about how to interview people - that way you’ll learn their tricks (and probably find out most people can’t interview very well).</p>
<p>My head isn’t completely in the sand on this issue. My relative with a new CE degree got hired by the state DOT this past fall, no doubt over many, many other grads with better GPAs from better schools. Why? I think because he was dying to do road work, it showed, and they knew he’d be a keeper if hired. He had a successful internship the previous year but so did 40 other kids. He spent the summer before that out on the lot of a big box home improvement store hauling stuff. I told him to put that on his resume - let them know he doesn’t mind getting dirty and hot.</p>
<p>Do whatever you have to do, quit worrying, work hard. You might get lucky.</p>