So what exactly is structural engineering?
Well, structural engineers design and restore the buildings that we live and work in, not to mention towers, bridges, sports stadia, and so on.

Gateshead Millenium Bridge (2001)

This bridge was constructed off-site and carried down river using one of the largest floating cranes in the world. The unique design enables the bridge to rotate to allow ships to pass underneath.

But I thought architects designed buildings?
Actually, it's a joint effort. Normally, the architect comes up with an idea - say, to roof over the Central Court of the British Museum, and then asks a structural engineer to sketch up various ways for the roof to span across the space - preferably one that looks elegant. Does that help?

A bit, but tell me more…
Well, the important thing is to find an engineering solution that fits in with the architect's vision for a structure. I guess that at the British Museum they wanted something fairly transparent, so they chose a thin steel grillage bent into a doubly curved shell - rather like the shell of an egg. But there are other engineering solutions - the sort of steel trusses you find in Victorian railway stations, for example. As the structural engineer, you would need to do some calculations to check that the roof doesn't flex too much when the wind blows, or worse still - collapse the next time there's a heavy snowfall. All very important work - get it wrong and you would be putting people's lives at risk.

City of Manchester Stadium(2002)

After the Commonwealth Games, the stadium was transformed into a football stadium for Manchester City. A cable running around the inside edge of the roof is pulled down at the four corners to hold the edge of the roof down against uplift from wind.

It sounds interesting - I'm quite good with numbers, but I'm not sure I want to sit behind a computer all my life!
You wouldn't have to. If you want to get stuck into detailed structural analysis, you can, but there are plenty of opportunities to get out of the office - after all, you will need to visit the construction site to check that the building is going together the way you intended on the drawings! And don't forget about the chances for foreign travel - many larger firms have offices abroad, and there's always demand for experienced engineers in Third World disaster relief.

If you're really keen on getting out and about, you can work for a contractor - they are the ones who build what the designers have drawn. It can be just as much of a challenge thinking about how to build something as doing the original design. For example, the people who built Westminster Tube Station had to figure out how to keep the Circle Line trains running while they dug out an 8 storey deep basement below.

Structural engineering certainly sounds worthwhile, so tell me more.

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