Construction
Education
In almost every professional field of study there seems to be a littlie bit of trouble making the professional world and academia see eye-to-eye regarding who is supposed to teach different things. Caught in the middle, obviously, are the students. Seeing the big picture is difficult, but one thing is certain: school seems valuable to everybody concerned, and actual field experience is invaluable. The role of institutions is to be "effective in developing the talents of learners within construction education programs." (Journal of Construction Education online, 2000)
Most thinkers on and off of college campuses agree that the role of education, in a broad sense, is to teach people to learn and to instill in students “the ability to think things through.” (Estes, 2000) Most recent graduates that go to work in industry can be heard saying things like “I didn’t know that I didn’t know anything when I started this job,” or that their superiors have “forgotten more than I’ll probably ever know.” This makes sense and points at the old expression that “experience is the best teacher.” College is a threshold; a place of transition where new concepts are introduced in a language that inexperienced ears can comprehend.
Construction education, on an undergraduate level, is valuable in that it serves to provide students with a “tool belt” filled with the basics. The construction student’s tool belt is similar in concept to that of a carpenter, which contains nail, a tape measure, a hammer (preferably ergonomically designed), a pencil, perhaps a chalk line, etc. Just because a person is wearing a tool belt does not make them a craftsman, he must know how to use the tools and understand their application to build things. The student’s “tool belt” contains some terminology and knowledge of basic estimating, basic scheduling, basic project management techniques, a few construction related laws, basic materials and methods, etc. (Murphy, 2000) Undergraduate construction school prepares students to be Project Engineers (PE) and Assistant Project Managers (APM) as they sharpen their skills in the workplace. A person with a Bachelor’s degree in construction can expect to become a fine Project Manager in five to ten years.
Graduate-level construction schooling takes a slightly different approach. People from a wide range of background disciplines are fitted with a different type of tool belt. The tool belts of graduate students in construction, while still containing basics, are filled with tools to address larger pictures. Things found in a graduate student’s belt are insights into labor relations issues, productivity management, the ins and outs of project delivery methods, and more advanced scheduling techniques. Masters students are groomed more to be problem solvers, using their breadth of knowledge to look at issues in a broader sense. Many people with graduate degrees are specialized, by the nature of their training, for unique job positions. If a graduate student in construction has an undergraduate in finance, for example, she could eventually be very effective working for a bank reviewing proposals and projects soliciting loans. A student with an undergraduate in construction might be well suited for work in a design/build organization or as an owner’s representative for an entity that does a lot of building. Regardless of individualized skills, however, and in both aforementioned examples, field experience after college in project management is necessary.
Regardless of the level to which construction students take their education, field experience is crucial. It is impossible for academia to create a ready-to-go, “batteries included” Project Manager. Without field experience green graduates are like Chimpanzee wearing a tool belt.