Those who attend UTSA’s Commencement ceremonies at the end of each semester have noticed a trend taking hold. There seem to be more and more graduates in hard hats crossing the stage each time.
They’re not mistaken.
Traditionally, graduates earning degrees in Construction Science and Management (CSM) at UTSA swap out their mortarboards for bright orange construction hard hats. What some once perceived as a niche degree program now boasts more than 300 students and is expected to grow exponentially. No one is more pleased with this development than Ibukun Awolusi, Lutcher Brown Endowed Fellow, associate professor and division leader of construction science and management at UTSA.
Awolusi, a first-generation college student who obtained his bachelor’s degree in building (2009) and master’s degree in construction management (2014) at the University of Lagos in his native Nigeria, remembers a time when construction science and management wasn’t this popular or prominent. “Construction managers almost played second fiddle to civil engineers back then because a lot of people didn’t know how important we were,” Awolusi said.
That perception is slowly but surely changing. CSM graduates from UTSA develop an arsenal of practical and professional skills that give them a high level of autonomy in their careers. Sombrilla Magazine sat down for a conversation with Awolusi, who discussed the benefits of earning a degree in the growing construction management field and what sets UTSA’s CSM program apart from those at other universities.
Q: There’s a broad perception that construction jobs are blue-collar jobs that don’t require a college degree. What career advantages come from pursuing a bachelor’s degree in construction science and management?
A: My experience was the same. When I was thinking about college, the prominent disciplines were engineering, accounting, law and anything in the medical field. I didn’t really hear a lot about construction. There definitely is a misconception that you don’t need a college degree to go into construction, but you know what? There’s a lot that goes into construction. It’s a unique field because we’re not just responsible for constructing the buildings, infrastructure and other facilities that support human existence, but we’re also responsible for maintaining them over their life cycle. That’s important because we are always growing and evolving. San Antonio, in particular, is growing every day faster than any other city in the United States.
We do so many things as construction managers. Let’s think about a typical building. The architects will design the building — the rooms, spaces, etc. Then, the civil engineers will do the structural design to make sure the building is stable, strong and sound. But who does the actual construction? Construction scientists and managers. We take all of those designs, and we estimate the cost of all the resources, including materials needed to bring the building to life. We have to make sure those materials are properly sourced, which can be a challenge when there are supply chain issues. We schedule when items will be purchased and avoid cost overrun. We schedule the labor and supervise them to make sure they perform each task safely and to the required quality standard, so that the building can stand the test of time.
When you’re a construction manager, you can pitch your tent in many different aspects of construction. If you work for 10 years in any construction specialty and then you decide you want to work in another, your construction management knowledge will continue to be relevant.
Q: When you look through the CSM course catalog here at UTSA, some of the classes would be obvious to a casual observer, like Construction Materials or Structures or Surveying. But you’ll also find listings for classes like Construction Law and Sustainable Building Practices. How important is it to develop graduates that are well-versed in both the practical, hands-on side of construction as well as the more professional and strategic side?
A: When I talk to my students, I let them know that building those communication and interpersonal skills is crucial. If you’re just starting, you’re going to be interacting with field workers as well as other stakeholders, like architects and designers. An architect can design a house shaped like an airplane if that’s what the owner wants, but construction managers are always thinking about buildability, and they need to interface with those architects and designers to align their respective goals and make sure that whatever is being constructed is deliverable. There are so many things that go into that, including contract law.
You also want to make sure you understand how to transact a construction business, which is why we have business law in our curriculum. Something unique about our program is that it’s designed so that our students can minor in business. Many people who succeed in construction management go on to own their own company, but you need the business acumen to be able to do that. That’s why we expose our students to finance and accounting. That mix makes our students well-rounded as they get ready to work with different types of professionals in their careers. They can speak their language.
Construction companies want to hire our Construction Science and Management students. They’ve looked at our curriculum and feel that it’s very holistic. Of course, we also ask employers about how our students are performing, and they’re always very impressed.
Read the Sombrilla Magazine story about CSM graduate Bonnie Lee, whose internship at Webber led to a rewarding career.
Q: Why do you think Construction Science and Management is an increasingly appealing degree? And how has UTSA’s CSM program stood out among its peers?
A: Like I said before, the population of San Antonio is growing. We need new infrastructure. We need new buildings. We need new schools. We need new roads and bridges. Obviously, we also have older buildings and infrastructure that we need to maintain. It’s a profession that will continue to grow. The need is there.
And at UTSA, we really place a high level of importance in experiential learning. We have a required internship as part of our degree plan. The internship is taken as a course, and that helps our students so much. After their junior year, they get to put into practice the skills they’ve acquired — estimating skills, project scheduling skills, communication skills, etc. — with a real construction company for three months. Most of the time, our students don’t really come back as full-time students. I mean, they take a full-time student’s courseload, but they’re already working on a part-time basis. They usually do so well in those internships that the company will give them 10 hours a week if they can manage it. A lot of our students have a full-time job opportunity before they even finish their degrees. We have 100% placement. You’re not going to get that in a lot of construction management programs at other universities.
What I see all the time when I go to our CSM Career Fair is that our alumni are on the other side of the table recruiting our current students. I always encourage our students to attend the career fair and picture themselves on the other side of the table, so, to see that happening is really special. It’s a great time for us. Our program is growing and the construction industry is active. It’s definitely an exciting time.
