Question For People Who Works for a DOT.

[jeffandnicole]

If you don't like travelling, work in Rhode Island.   

[CANALLER]

MARCUS & BUFFBOY--

Let me try to answer your questions (and peoples' other comments) from the perspective of a career D.O.T. employee:

You can go to any college that has degrees in construction or engineering related fields.  If Buffboy is somewhere in Oneida County (my old home), he can go to M.V. for engineering or U.C. for Construction Mgmt., which is the path I took.  There is no set requirement that you have to go to any certain school, but you do have to include the right courses.

You also do NOT need to have a P.E.   It's nice to have, but costs a lot more.  And once you get  your liscence, you'll be spending much of your time doing design work.  If you get promoted, then you'll be more of an administrator.  You'll oversee a handfull of projects each year, but you'll have very little involvement with them, especially if you have good people working under you.  I work on 5-6+ small projects each year, and I see a supervisor come out to check on the job maybe once every 2-3 years.

The tech series offers you much more direct involvement with a job.  The inspectors are there every day or night, and directly oversee and check on the contractor's work.  Although you don't do the actual physical building work, you'll be able to see how a project goes together from start-to-finish.  Your boss (Engineer-In-Charge) will stop out for an hour or two a couple times a week, but YOU would be the D.O.T. employee most visible on the job.  You check out the crew's work to ensure it conforms with plans and specs, test materials and compute quantities.  The contractor doesn't get paid until you sign off on it.  If you're on an expressway job, you'll also have to check out all of the M. & P.T. patterns before work even starts.  They're often very complex, and they change nightly.

As was stated above, there is also a lot of o.t.  I have personally turned down numerous promotions because the net pay cut would be huge, well into a 5-figure loss in good years.  But that also comes with a price:  You have to be willing to be on-call 24-365, and frequent cancellations due to weather or other problems mean that the plans you just cancelled because you had to work you could've gone to any way.  If you want to have an active family life or social life outside of work, this is NOT the job for you.  That said, if you're willing to take whatever shifts are offered, you can do very well.  Remember, all of your benefits (Do they have pensions in Georgia?) are based on what you actually made for the year, NOT what title you carry.  My paychecks are often higher than my bosses', including some that are 8 grades higher than me.  So I could never take a promotion in anything other than a field position.

All of those comments apply to people who work on the construction/engineering side of D.O.T., which I presume is what you want to do.  But there are many other "dep't's" within D.O.T., although they're often only a single person, or at most a very small group.  We have people that do environmental work, planning, traffic counts (yes, you stand there and count cars), aesthetics, landscape work and more.   Many of these positions are within the construction side, and just have someone with a construction title assigned to cover each individual topic.  But there are also some titles that specifically call for people with degrees that are related to those particular functions.

The best way to see what is actually required is to go through your state's civil service exam announcements.  This is much easier now with computers, as anyone can look them up, whereas they used to be just hanging up in the post office or listed in the paper, hard for anyone to know they were even there.  So go to Georgia's Dep't Of Civil Service site, and look for the section with upcoming exams.  Each one should list what title it's for, and also what the minimum requirements are.  This would include both educational and work experience requirements.  For entry-level titles, many test allow you to interchange years of school for years of work, so recent graduates can take the test. 

I would strongly recommend that you take any test you're qualified for, even if you don't think you're interested.  That's because they usually run the test only once every 4-5 years.  So if you don't take it for whatever reason, you've just guaranteed yourself that you can't get that job for at least the next 5 years.  So your only hope would be to be a seasonal employee, laid off at the end of every summer.

The biggest issue in getting hired is being in the right place at the right time.  First and foremost, you MUST take EVERY test you qualify for whenever it's offered.  Then, if you pass, you get put on a hiring list.  But the actual hiring is dictated by the bean-counters, and only takes place when they allow it.  Politics has a lot to do with this, but that's between the governor and the legislature.  I've never personally known any one who was asked what party they're in, nor have I seen any one get or lose a job because of that.  Where this does become an issue is when you consider who's running the state.  Republicans are generally much less interested in funding transportation, and also will do anything they can to cut the state workforce and pawn it off to private contractors, who cost double, triple, fourple times as much to do the same work.  You have NO CONTROL over this, so all you can do is make sure your name is on the eligible list when the budget people allow hiring to take place.

Another big thing is mobility.  If you're willing to work in an area that's not the region or district you live in, you've increased your chances dramatically.  I've seen people with a 75 on the test get hired before someone with a 100 because they were willing to work in a place that the other guy didn't want to.  Again, it's all in the timing.  I've also seen people with 100's on multiple tests wait years to get hired full time, and be stuck with seasonal lay-offs many times, because no full time titles could be filled.  And other people get on the list and get hired in a couple months because they took and passed the test at a time when titles could be filled.

The one thing you want to AVOID is thinking that Val's case is a viable career path.  There is a mechanism for provisional hiring in Civil Service Law, but it's RARELY used.  She (and a handfull of others) were able to get in this year because the eligible lists were exhausted.  What that means is essentially a lot of people couldn't wait any longer and took other jobs.  But this situation is NOT common, and won't happen again after all of the tech tests are given this summer.  She was one who just happened to be available at the right time, and was willing to move a hundred miles to take the job.  (Notice the common theme here again.)  Provisional titles (when they're actually given out) also require you to take and pass the test as soon as it's offered, and if your score means you're not reachable amongst those who took the test, you're history.

Hope this helps.  Drop me a line if you have any questions.

Marc
N.Y.S.D.O.T.

[jeffandnicole]

Great info Marc.

I will add just one thing: Overtime = Pension may or may not be true depending on the state or the job.  In NJ my pension is based on my regular salary only.  When I do snow work, I get paid the overtime rate, which is fixed regardless of how much money one makes.  It does not get computed into my pension calculation should I decide to retire soon.  They don't take any pension deductions out either.

Otherwise, everything you said appears to be spot on for NJ as well.  The overwhelming majority of positions are civil service/union positions, and no one cares what political party you are registered as.  They don't even care if you even signed up to vote.  There are some positions which do have more to do with the governor in power, but to make a long story short that generally won't apply here for the normal state employee.

As an aside: When I go to NJDOT public meetings (as a member of the public, I declare no affiliation with the state whatsoever as that could constitute an ethics violation  ), the same person tends to be at the meetings for admin duties and such.  I got to know one person fairly well.  Then, I didn't see her anymore.  I talked to someone and they said she had been a political appointee and after the change in Governors she was removed.  Even though the nature of her specific type of position generally is based on the Governor, and those people are supposed to be well aware of that, she still had a rough time with being dismissed.

[Buffaboy]

MARCUS & BUFFBOY--

Let me try to answer your questions (and peoples' other comments) from the perspective of a career D.O.T. employee:

You can go to any college that has degrees in construction or engineering related fields.  If Buffboy is somewhere in Oneida County (my old home), he can go to M.V. for engineering or U.C. for Construction Mgmt., which is the path I took.  There is no set requirement that you have to go to any certain school, but you do have to include the right courses.

You also do NOT need to have a P.E.   It's nice to have, but costs a lot more.  And once you get  your liscence, you'll be spending much of your time doing design work.  If you get promoted, then you'll be more of an administrator.  You'll oversee a handfull of projects each year, but you'll have very little involvement with them, especially if you have good people working under you.  I work on 5-6+ small projects each year, and I see a supervisor come out to check on the job maybe once every 2-3 years.

The tech series offers you much more direct involvement with a job.  The inspectors are there every day or night, and directly oversee and check on the contractor's work.  Although you don't do the actual physical building work, you'll be able to see how a project goes together from start-to-finish.  Your boss (Engineer-In-Charge) will stop out for an hour or two a couple times a week, but YOU would be the D.O.T. employee most visible on the job.  You check out the crew's work to ensure it conforms with plans and specs, test materials and compute quantities.  The contractor doesn't get paid until you sign off on it.  If you're on an expressway job, you'll also have to check out all of the M. & P.T. patterns before work even starts.  They're often very complex, and they change nightly.

As was stated above, there is also a lot of o.t.  I have personally turned down numerous promotions because the net pay cut would be huge, well into a 5-figure loss in good years.  But that also comes with a price:  You have to be willing to be on-call 24-365, and frequent cancellations due to weather or other problems mean that the plans you just cancelled because you had to work you could've gone to any way.  If you want to have an active family life or social life outside of work, this is NOT the job for you.  That said, if you're willing to take whatever shifts are offered, you can do very well.  Remember, all of your benefits (Do they have pensions in Georgia?) are based on what you actually made for the year, NOT what title you carry.  My paychecks are often higher than my bosses', including some that are 8 grades higher than me.  So I could never take a promotion in anything other than a field position.

All of those comments apply to people who work on the construction/engineering side of D.O.T., which I presume is what you want to do.  But there are many other "dep't's" within D.O.T., although they're often only a single person, or at most a very small group.  We have people that do environmental work, planning, traffic counts (yes, you stand there and count cars), aesthetics, landscape work and more.   Many of these positions are within the construction side, and just have someone with a construction title assigned to cover each individual topic.  But there are also some titles that specifically call for people with degrees that are related to those particular functions.

The best way to see what is actually required is to go through your state's civil service exam announcements.  This is much easier now with computers, as anyone can look them up, whereas they used to be just hanging up in the post office or listed in the paper, hard for anyone to know they were even there.  So go to Georgia's Dep't Of Civil Service site, and look for the section with upcoming exams.  Each one should list what title it's for, and also what the minimum requirements are.  This would include both educational and work experience requirements.  For entry-level titles, many test allow you to interchange years of school for years of work, so recent graduates can take the test. 

I would strongly recommend that you take any test you're qualified for, even if you don't think you're interested.  That's because they usually run the test only once every 4-5 years.  So if you don't take it for whatever reason, you've just guaranteed yourself that you can't get that job for at least the next 5 years.  So your only hope would be to be a seasonal employee, laid off at the end of every summer.

The biggest issue in getting hired is being in the right place at the right time.  First and foremost, you MUST take EVERY test you qualify for whenever it's offered.  Then, if you pass, you get put on a hiring list.  But the actual hiring is dictated by the bean-counters, and only takes place when they allow it.  Politics has a lot to do with this, but that's between the governor and the legislature.  I've never personally known any one who was asked what party they're in, nor have I seen any one get or lose a job because of that.  Where this does become an issue is when you consider who's running the state.  Republicans are generally much less interested in funding transportation, and also will do anything they can to cut the state workforce and pawn it off to private contractors, who cost double, triple, fourple times as much to do the same work.  You have NO CONTROL over this, so all you can do is make sure your name is on the eligible list when the budget people allow hiring to take place.

Another big thing is mobility.  If you're willing to work in an area that's not the region or district you live in, you've increased your chances dramatically.  I've seen people with a 75 on the test get hired before someone with a 100 because they were willing to work in a place that the other guy didn't want to.  Again, it's all in the timing.  I've also seen people with 100's on multiple tests wait years to get hired full time, and be stuck with seasonal lay-offs many times, because no full time titles could be filled.  And other people get on the list and get hired in a couple months because they took and passed the test at a time when titles could be filled.

The one thing you want to AVOID is thinking that Val's case is a viable career path.  There is a mechanism for provisional hiring in Civil Service Law, but it's RARELY used.  She (and a handfull of others) were able to get in this year because the eligible lists were exhausted.  What that means is essentially a lot of people couldn't wait any longer and took other jobs.  But this situation is NOT common, and won't happen again after all of the tech tests are given this summer.  She was one who just happened to be available at the right time, and was willing to move a hundred miles to take the job.  (Notice the common theme here again.)  Provisional titles (when they're actually given out) also require you to take and pass the test as soon as it's offered, and if your score means you're not reachable amongst those who took the test, you're history.

Hope this helps.  Drop me a line if you have any questions.

Marc
N.Y.S.D.O.T.

Thanks for all of your helpful insight. Believe it or not, I actually don't go to MV or U.C.; I go to the "red-headed stepchild" across town (which I don't really want to name but you can put 2+2 together), which actually has a growing engineering college. My school's engineering tech majors are accredited, but since the engineering programs are so new (established within last 5 years and modeled off of Binghamton and UB), they aren't ABET accredited yet which worries me a bit. I was also wondering if it is worth having the P.E. from civil engineering and if I wanted to go the tech route it wouldn't be a problem.

There's a lot to chew on in your reply so I won't go into a bunch of paragraphs, but in the meantime, thanks for the information.

[Avalanchez71]

I'm a communications person, so my degree is in journalism, and my relevant past work experience is all in either journalism or public relations.

As others have said, it all depends on what you want to do. Many of the different jobs have different career paths you can follow. You can be an equipment operator, which doesn't require college. Many of our construction tech jobs don't require degrees either. We have some career paths that require two-year degrees; others require four-year degrees and PE certification. Or you can go into IT or human resources or any of a number of other support fields.

Tennessee let a bunch of workerbees go as they did not have a high school diploma.  These folks worked for TDOT for years and changed the rules in the middle of the game.

[vdeane]

Yeah, my path is very unusual in a number of ways.  To be fair, I DID take the test before I started (though not before I interviewed),.. the results just hadn't come out yet.  It was quite a stressful few months waiting to find out if I could keep the job or if I'd be stuck unemployed again.  Plus my probation effectively lasts four months longer than normal because it officially began when I became permanent, not when I actually started (seniority is also based on that date, which affects layoffs and promotion eligibility).

My new coworker moved here from Fishkill.  Unlike me, she was actually PLANNING (pun not intended) to live in Albany.

[MarcusDoT]

MARCUS & BUFFBOY--

Let me try to answer your questions (and peoples' other comments) from the perspective of a career D.O.T. employee:

You can go to any college that has degrees in construction or engineering related fields.  If Buffboy is somewhere in Oneida County (my old home), he can go to M.V. for engineering or U.C. for Construction Mgmt., which is the path I took.  There is no set requirement that you have to go to any certain school, but you do have to include the right courses.

You also do NOT need to have a P.E.   It's nice to have, but costs a lot more.  And once you get  your liscence, you'll be spending much of your time doing design work.  If you get promoted, then you'll be more of an administrator.  You'll oversee a handfull of projects each year, but you'll have very little involvement with them, especially if you have good people working under you.  I work on 5-6+ small projects each year, and I see a supervisor come out to check on the job maybe once every 2-3 years.

The tech series offers you much more direct involvement with a job.  The inspectors are there every day or night, and directly oversee and check on the contractor's work.  Although you don't do the actual physical building work, you'll be able to see how a project goes together from start-to-finish.  Your boss (Engineer-In-Charge) will stop out for an hour or two a couple times a week, but YOU would be the D.O.T. employee most visible on the job.  You check out the crew's work to ensure it conforms with plans and specs, test materials and compute quantities.  The contractor doesn't get paid until you sign off on it.  If you're on an expressway job, you'll also have to check out all of the M. & P.T. patterns before work even starts.  They're often very complex, and they change nightly.

As was stated above, there is also a lot of o.t.  I have personally turned down numerous promotions because the net pay cut would be huge, well into a 5-figure loss in good years.  But that also comes with a price:  You have to be willing to be on-call 24-365, and frequent cancellations due to weather or other problems mean that the plans you just cancelled because you had to work you could've gone to any way.  If you want to have an active family life or social life outside of work, this is NOT the job for you.  That said, if you're willing to take whatever shifts are offered, you can do very well.  Remember, all of your benefits (Do they have pensions in Georgia?) are based on what you actually made for the year, NOT what title you carry.  My paychecks are often higher than my bosses', including some that are 8 grades higher than me.  So I could never take a promotion in anything other than a field position.

All of those comments apply to people who work on the construction/engineering side of D.O.T., which I presume is what you want to do.  But there are many other "dep't's" within D.O.T., although they're often only a single person, or at most a very small group.  We have people that do environmental work, planning, traffic counts (yes, you stand there and count cars), aesthetics, landscape work and more.   Many of these positions are within the construction side, and just have someone with a construction title assigned to cover each individual topic.  But there are also some titles that specifically call for people with degrees that are related to those particular functions.

The best way to see what is actually required is to go through your state's civil service exam announcements.  This is much easier now with computers, as anyone can look them up, whereas they used to be just hanging up in the post office or listed in the paper, hard for anyone to know they were even there.  So go to Georgia's Dep't Of Civil Service site, and look for the section with upcoming exams.  Each one should list what title it's for, and also what the minimum requirements are.  This would include both educational and work experience requirements.  For entry-level titles, many test allow you to interchange years of school for years of work, so recent graduates can take the test. 

I would strongly recommend that you take any test you're qualified for, even if you don't think you're interested.  That's because they usually run the test only once every 4-5 years.  So if you don't take it for whatever reason, you've just guaranteed yourself that you can't get that job for at least the next 5 years.  So your only hope would be to be a seasonal employee, laid off at the end of every summer.

The biggest issue in getting hired is being in the right place at the right time.  First and foremost, you MUST take EVERY test you qualify for whenever it's offered.  Then, if you pass, you get put on a hiring list.  But the actual hiring is dictated by the bean-counters, and only takes place when they allow it.  Politics has a lot to do with this, but that's between the governor and the legislature.  I've never personally known any one who was asked what party they're in, nor have I seen any one get or lose a job because of that.  Where this does become an issue is when you consider who's running the state.  Republicans are generally much less interested in funding transportation, and also will do anything they can to cut the state workforce and pawn it off to private contractors, who cost double, triple, fourple times as much to do the same work.  You have NO CONTROL over this, so all you can do is make sure your name is on the eligible list when the budget people allow hiring to take place.

Another big thing is mobility.  If you're willing to work in an area that's not the region or district you live in, you've increased your chances dramatically.  I've seen people with a 75 on the test get hired before someone with a 100 because they were willing to work in a place that the other guy didn't want to.  Again, it's all in the timing.  I've also seen people with 100's on multiple tests wait years to get hired full time, and be stuck with seasonal lay-offs many times, because no full time titles could be filled.  And other people get on the list and get hired in a couple months because they took and passed the test at a time when titles could be filled.

The one thing you want to AVOID is thinking that Val's case is a viable career path.  There is a mechanism for provisional hiring in Civil Service Law, but it's RARELY used.  She (and a handfull of others) were able to get in this year because the eligible lists were exhausted.  What that means is essentially a lot of people couldn't wait any longer and took other jobs.  But this situation is NOT common, and won't happen again after all of the tech tests are given this summer.  She was one who just happened to be available at the right time, and was willing to move a hundred miles to take the job.  (Notice the common theme here again.)  Provisional titles (when they're actually given out) also require you to take and pass the test as soon as it's offered, and if your score means you're not reachable amongst those who took the test, you're history.

Hope this helps.  Drop me a line if you have any questions.

Marc
N.Y.S.D.O.T.

Okay, Thanks for helping me out with that. 

When you say design work at the beginning, may you be a little more specific? 

[CANALLER]

Here are a few more thoughts to go with peoples' comments:

MARCUS--You're young enough that you can get 4 hours of sleep and feel fine.  Trust me, when you get into your 40's and work erratic hours, it's not quite as easy.  We had a full weekend closure this past weekend, with a 40-hour window to accomplish a lot.  My portions of it were from 5 P.M. Friday until 7 A.M. Saturday, from 7 P.M. Saturday until 3:30 A.M. Sunday, and an hour to check it all late Sunday night.  Some of the crewmen worked even longer shifts, with less time in between.  Contrary to popular opinion, a college degree does NOT guarantee you banker's hours.

JEFF--Yes, O.T. still counts in our pensions.  Sorry if it doesn't work that way for you.  The state is starting to crack down on it, though, by introducing a couple new tiers within the last few years.  The benefits they offer are of course lower than what the older employees get, but still very good compared to most of the population.  Unfortunately, the crack-down is mostly due to abuses by prison guards and public safety officials.  Those guys are allowed to work any time they want.  And a bunch of them work pretty much every day of they year.  They wind up taking home more than the governor.  And when the paper gets a hold of it, and prints an article with a list of people who's base pay is $50,000, but gross close to $200,000 for the year, the rest of us all suffer as a result.

BUFFBOY--I find it hard to believe that a state school would offer a program that's not accreditted.  That's an absolute requirement to take a civil service test, and every single announcement has the statement that your degree must be from an accreditted school.  If it's not, then don't waste your time or money on something that will get you nowhere.  Instead, go to one of the other schools in town.  One of the smartest and most successfull guys I've ever met has just a 2-year degree from the local C.C., and many others at work have gone that route as well.  You don't need to have a $200,000 education to work with us, just the right classes for the work you want to do.

VAL--Sorry to pick on you, but your experience fits perfectly with what I'm trying to explain to these guys.  Although you and a few others got very lucky, it still isn't a path I'd recommend anybody to take.  It'll be many years before a bunch of provisional titles are approved again, and I can't in good conscience tell these guys to just sit and wait their turn.

MARCUS--Design work is involved with many of our projects.  A lot of it is still farmed out, but we still do plenty of it in-house.  There are several squads that do just what the description says: design jobs.  This includes projects for bridges, pavement, maintenance work, signs, drainage, villages, and more.  Most of it is done by CADD now, so make sure you take a course in that.  There are also a lot of smaller groups within Design that do a lot of the prep work before a project is put together: culvert inspection, planning, traffic, pavement evaluations and such.  Some of this work is done by construction people in the winter, but there are also full-timers assigned to it year-round.  If you were to get your P.E. and move up the ranks, you'd wind up doing more administrative work, and have mush less direct involvement in designing or building the jobs.  I have no interest in contract administration, but some people do.  It's just a matter of your personal preference, and also what positions are vacant at that time.

BIG JOHN--The political affiliation affects only a small portion of the state workforce.  I have no like for any politician, and have never even signed up to vote, and it hasn't hurt me a bit.  Where it does matter is for what are referred to as Management-Confidential employees.  These people are mostly thought of as all the political hacks, and they "SERVE AT THE PLEASURE OF THE GOVERNOR".  So your party affiliation definitely matters there, because when the governor's office changes hands, most of those people are replaced.  Unfortunately, this classification also applies to their support staff, so a lot of secretaries and clerical people wind up getting classified as management types, with no union representation and no rights, and they suffer for it.  Their pay and benefits are dictated to them, rather than bargained for like everyone else.

ALL--One thing I should mention is to brush up on your English skills.  Most state positions involve some degree of writing reports and there's always paper work.  EVERY exam has English sections on it.  So if you know basic grammar and sentence structure, you can get 1/3rd of the questions right and boost your score a lot.  And each question counts the same, so every English question you get right offsets some technical question that you had to guess at.


Check back in a few days.  I'll write another note about all of the indirect ways to get into D.O.T. when I get a free afternoon.  But we have a long night shift planned for tonight, so I don't have enough time to explain it all today.

[hbelkins]

I've never personally known any one who was asked what party they're in

Kentucky has been a cesspool of Democrat corruption in regards to state merit system hiring for decades. I could really get up on my soapbox here, but I won't. But I will say that a former personnel manager in my office, who retired before I started, used to say that you had to be "the right religion" before he would approve your hiring. The right religion meaning Democrat. Others were known to actually come out and say that you had to be a registered Democrat before you'd be considered, and I know at least two people who changed their registration from R to D so they would be hired.

Republicans are generally much less interested in funding transportation

Overbroad untrue stereotype.

[GCrites]

^Yeah, Rs might not be as big on rail transpo, but the love to fund roads!

[CANALLER]

SCOTT--

Sorry, I forgot to answer your question.  Sign design is a function of the Traffic & Safety Group.  There isn't set degree for it, but rather guys who work in that group do the work.  So you just need to have had some degree that qualified you to get into D.O.T., and then been assigned to or transferred into that group at some point.  A good working knowledge of the Vehicle & Traffic Law or the M.U.T.C.D. are also a big help.  Some projects (like local projects funded through the state) have their sign design done by consultants.  I don't know how other states do it, so your's may or may not follow this model.

If you do get into sign design, please be very careful and check your work by making a FIELD VISIT.  This is where you can really make a difference.  Most sign jobs are designed by people who never leave their desks, relying on information that was either incorrect, or worse yet outdated years ago.  Making sure your design matches the existing field conditions is an absolute must, but one that is never done until the job is actually under construction.  I can't stress enough how frustrating and costly and embarrassing it is to have an entire expressway shut down for the night, set up detours, have thousands of dollars of manpower and equipment on-site, and then you find out that something's spelled wrong, or the wrong color, or has some other error.   

I can tell you first hand that NOTHING ELSE generates more angry phone calls and complaints than when you put up a sign with somebody's street name spelled wrong.  And if the street was named after a family name and you still go it wrong, you'll get even more wrath from the public.  The designers seem to forget that they can have a whole squad of people putting a projects together for MONTHS, yet when the project is under construction, the inspector has no choice but to reject the wrong sign, and the crew must move on.  The they have to re-order the correct sign, wait for it to arrive on-site, and then make a special trip back there to put it up.  The old saying that TIME IS MONEY is very true here.  The state gets much better prices on jobs that can be built in succession, where a crew can start at one end of a route and go for miles, then move on to somewhere else. When they have to make a return trip to a location they would've otherwise completed a month ago, from 25 miles or more away, is when the costs to the state start to add up.

[MarcusDoT]

Hey, I'm Marcus.

So this year I'm a senior and there's a project we have to work on in order to graduate (besides passing our courses). This project is about the job/career you're interested in. As my job I narrowed it down to Traffic Technologist / Traffic Control Technician. I have to interview someone who has the job or a career very similar to it. I came here to see if I can find someone with this job or if you know anyone with this job if you could let me know. There's only 11 questions that I need to ask but I might ask for a few more for personal interests. 

td:lr
If you're a Traffic Technologist / Traffic Control, can I please interview you for a project?

[hotdogPi]

Hey, I'm Marcus.

So this year I'm a senior and there's a project we have to work on in order to graduate (besides passing our courses). This project is about the job/career you're interested in. As my job I narrowed it down to Traffic Technologist / Traffic Control Technician. I have to interview someone who has the job or a career very similar to it. I came here to see if I can find someone with this job or if you know anyone with this job if you could let me know. There's only 11 questions that I need to ask but I might ask for a few more for personal interests. 

td:lr
If you're a Traffic Technologist / Traffic Control, can I please interview you for a project?

This a copy-and-paste from a new thread you created. You don't need to post it again.

td:lr

waht

[silverback1065]

Some advice, I wanted to work for the DOT, but quickly realized it wasn't for me.  ask yourself what you want to do in this field: traffic engineering? design? inspect? administrative? I went to Purdue with a major in civil engineering (transportation emphasis) and went the design route when I graduated.  I like my job at a private firm.  I have a good friend that works for INDOT as a traffic engineer, and he loves it.  If you want to be a traffic engineer, the DOT is a great job.  I would try to intern at a private firm and a DOT and see which you like better.