What’s up Crew? Cool to be back with y’all.
In this episode, I answer a question that I received from a college student who is considering changing his educational trajectory into construction management.
Episode Transcript
[Speaker 1]: All right, what’s up team? Bob Hildebranski, Construction Engineering Show podcast.
It’s a Wednesday morning coming to you from the truck. A little windshield debrief, but for a morning. Sometimes these happen in the afternoon, usually after there’s something going on, something to chat about. But this morning, got something to chat about as well too. Gonna answer a question that came to me through the interwebs. We’ll change this individual’s name just to keep him anonymous, just in case. But Rick sent me a note on LinkedIn. You know, point out too, if there’s ever anything that comes up in terms of a dialogue, a little start of a conversation or something, if you’ve got a question, don’t be afraid to find me somewhere either at the website or at LinkedIn. Send me a note. I’m always interested to help out. But anyway, Rick sent me a note. Rick is a college student. Currently studying electrical engineering, I do believe. And he’s thinking about construction, construction management, getting involved in the construction process, contemplating whether or not a shift away from what he would say might be a more very technical type curriculum into construction. And just wanted to get my thoughts on what I thought.
So as the juices are kind of flowing, a couple of things were running through my head. And I think maybe just recoiling back to kind of frame it a little bit. One of the things in the United States, because I know we have listeners all over the place, but I think as a general society, and this is probably going back long ago when adolescents were adolescents and had to grow and become part of a society, the teenage years are what? Those are the formidable years. And as a society, as a culture, we ask quite a bit of them, right? You know, certainly being a kid is being a kid. Being an adult is being an adult, but you’re in that middle ground where you’re trying to figure out what exactly is the right fit. Certainly, you know, way back when the culture and the society said that you need to contribute to the tribe, right? You needed to contribute to the family. You need to survive, right? So a lot of the skill sets, a lot of the training, a lot of the the teaching and the education were about that because it was about a much smaller deliverable. Survival was what we needed to do. And then what happened? Then culture and society started. You ended up having the ability for adolescents to now pick up different skills, right? Because now society was evolving beyond. And we’re now to the point where We ask our teenagers to make a decision. The decision used to be made for them, right? Maybe if you were Benjamin Franklin’s time and were a teenager, you needed to help provide for your family, so you chose a craft. Franklin’s, you know, famously Benjamin Franklin started working in a print shop and that set his course for what he did in his early life. We require the same thing, but if you think about the amount of decisions or the different directions that adolescents, teenagers in our society now can pick from and choose, the thousands, the tens of thousands of directions that one can go now in terms of what you think is something that would contribute to society and something that you’re interested in. Bringing that now down to where we’re at right now, the college system, our apprenticeship systems, what you can do as an entrepreneur. There’s so many different things that you can do. How do you pick? And really that’s what it is, is how do you pick? I think that the difficult part of where we’re at, especially on the college side of things, is the investment. The investment that we, that you, if you’re a student, are making in what you believe to be the correct direction and path is much harder because you’re investing so much. You’re investing in the time. There’s a financial investment both for you and your families. There’s a long-term investment that goes along with that with student loans. And we end up coming into this decision-making where we feel like we really gotta, we have to make the right decision. This decision, I’m charting the course for the rest of my life, right? Essentially, that becomes that decision that we think that we’re making at this time.
So to Rick’s point, Rick, probably I’m gonna say, if I can think out loud, a lot of us are STEM, products of the STEM side. We get into engineering, we get into this because we’re good at math, we like calculations, we like solving problems. That’s the reason why we’ve chosen this field that we’re in. But it’s so sected, right? S-E-C-T, if I can use that word. You’ve got mechanical. You’ve got electrical. You’ve got civil. You’ve got structural. You have environmental. You have lots of different paths that you can go down just in this small of engineering field that we’re in. How do I know that I’m picking the right one? What really grabbed my attention, which I think is really cool, is that Rick has essentially said, I don’t know if I like this. I’m starting in this and I don’t know if I like it. Would I like something else? Having the wherewithal to be able to say, I don’t necessarily like something, I think that’s healthy. I think it’s healthy because the general gist of the question is, hey, construction looks like that might be something I might want to do. And as a As a promoter, can I promote of the industry? Certainly you guys know me well enough now. This is a cool industry, right? This is a really cool industry that we get to work in because I think the difference in what we do versus some of the other maybe more tech savvy, mechanical, electrical, you know, there’s a lot more theory. There’s a lot more maybe problem solving. Construction, you get to see it. You get to kick it. You get to walk on it. You get to engage with it. It’s very dynamic. I certainly, I love what I do. I love what I do. I love the aspect of what I do. I love what we do in terms of an industry. I love the people because it is really such a wide cross-section, I think, of society at large. When you think of the assembly of tradespeople, of heavy equipment operators, of those that work in each individual craft, that all have to work together to be able to build a project, to solve a problem. It’s not just a bunch of tech savvy. Having the ability to work and work with different portions of our society, I think, is one of the coolest parts of what it is that we do. If you like that, and that’s really what this is, coming back full circle now.
Rick, if you think that being engaged with a whole bunch of different people and building projects like we build, like you drive on every day, if making a contribution to society in terms of the well-being, the mobility, everything that we get to do in terms of our work. If that’s something that interests you, then certainly you can hear the promotion bell going off, you know, try it. I would definitely say try it. I think that breaking the stigma, and commitment is important, you know, commitment is important. If we decide we’re gonna sign up to be on the soccer team, we owe it to the team, our players, our coaching staff, the people that are investing in us to do that, to stick with the commitment. Maybe at the end of the season, we decide this isn’t for me. I don’t like playing soccer. I want to try something else. That’s cool. You know, our education has that same kind of deal. You want to commit to something that you said is important to you and that you think that you want to do. But if out of the hop you went through your freshman season and you didn’t like playing soccer and you think you want to play baseball and try that, here’s what I say. I think you should try it. I don’t think that we should feel that we’re pinned down. Unfortunately, we are because of the investment in the education that we’re having to make. Has us making that commitment. But I do really think that this industry has so much to offer in terms of being able to put your hands on, being able to contribute to something bigger than yourself that contributes to society and culture and everything that we do. And whether or not that’s promoting the civil end of things, you know, you have the construction management end of things. And I think it’s important, too, that as a second part of this kind of conversation of knowing what interests you. You know, there are certainly the engineering folks who crunch numbers and like problem solving and like digging into that sort of the end of what we do, a design team. You know, there’s certainly a difference in civil engineering between design and construction. Definitely, they co-mingle at one point, but certainly they diverge in others. It’s an important decision, but it doesn’t mean that you have to make that decision today. You know, rooting yourself in soils and concrete and drainage and and the things that we build every day you know that’s part of the education but eventually you’ll find a niche and you’ll find a niche that you enjoy doing but I think that whether or not it’s a civil direction and a civil path or a construction management path because I think that decision is do I like the tech and the calc aspects and the science kind of bent that engineering provides versus being a construction manager, being engaged in assembly and managing contracts, putting resources in different places. It has a business and kind of an entrepreneurial sense about it where a project manager for a construction project may just have to have a general knowledge of a lot of the technical stuff, but you’re really there as an assembler. You’re really putting pieces and companies and things together to make the whole process work. So there’s certainly, you know, Two different paths. And both of those paths, they’re both great paths. It depends on what really gets you out of bed. And I think to wrap this thing up, really, the decisions that we make on a career path, you’re going to change. Everybody is going to find a different, you’re going to find different things that you like. You’re going to have different opportunities presented to you. They may still be within the industry that you’re at, but problem types, contract types, opportunities people who you are working with those are all gonna your your career is in a straight path where you’re gonna design storm sewers for 35 years maybe you are that maybe you are that one person that enjoys doing that and wants to commit your life to that but civil engineering construction management every day is different and I think that’s the beauty of it and being willing to engage in that it’s a It’s a great life. It makes a great life and a great career, a great contribution.
So Rick, at the end of the day, if what you’re doing on the tech side seems like it doesn’t get you out of bed in the morning and doing what you want to do, give it a try. Give it a try. Last thing to close out. Feel like I’m jumping off here don’t be afraid to take an internship don’t be afraid to take a summer job don’t be afraid to take a part-time job in something that you think you might like while you’re going through your education and whatever that is because a lot of that real-world experience will give you that It’ll give you that little window into what it is, whether or not it’s something that you think you would enjoy or you don’t. And the threshold to the commitment of that, the bar to entry is low. People who hire interns understand that you’re coming in green as a tree in spring, and they’re going to need to teach you that it’s a low commitment from both of you, but If and when you find that something that you do take on is something that you’re interested in doing, boy, the lights start flashing. I know just from my standpoint, my summer work, being employed in a couple of different projects, inspecting water main, that was the first, being able to be a draftsman and work inside of a design office for a summer, that sank it for me. That said, I’m in the right place. I am standing in the right place doing the right thing for the right reason. So encourage that. Tell my students at class, don’t be afraid to step out and try something because that trial will tell you whether or not it’s something that you want to do. All right. I feel like I’m rambling now. Hopefully this brought some benefit. Rick, we’re going to keep in touch. Reach back once you get this. We’ll continue the conversation. And for everybody who’s out there, don’t be afraid to do the same thing as Rick did. Drop a line. Send me an email. There are lots of places you can find me. Shoot me a note, and we will engage. All right? All right. Have a great day. Catch you on the next one. Peace.
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