Construction Engineering and Management MEng

After my BA at Yale, I went to the Peace Corps for three years before enrolling in a dual degree program at UMich. The projects I’ve worked on since leaving college have included historical renovations in California as well as here in Georgia. All experience helps you to be better at your job, but I would say these particular projects helped me become a more adaptable and flexible designer as you can never truly know the extents of existing conditions on the ground, especially for structures that are already decades old.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

Having a dual degree has been very helpful as it gives me credit with the contractors as well as the designers. Working on the design side, it sets me apart from my peers since I started with a working knowledge of how projects come together.

Reflection on Time Spent at U-M

Enjoy your time and try not to hole up in the Dude!

Being at Michigan, helped and gave me an amazing opportunity to intern with Hensel Phelps. Following that exposure, I interviewed with DPR Construction and acquired a full-time position after graduation from Masters. I had started off as a Project Engineer and applied a lot of the fundamentals that I had learned in Grad school. But, over time, I realized my interest lied in Coordination, and eventually I made a career shift within DPR to be a Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) or Building Information Modeling (BIM) Engineer. With this shift, once again, I realized a lot of the nuances that I had learned in Grad school with Scheduling, sequencing, construction equipment. Michigan had a plethora of opportunities to learn new software, understand various aspects of construction including cost as well. In my current role, I am also using and applying lean concepts to ensure coordination is in alignment with field applications. I learned a lot of those concepts through the projects I had been part of at Michigan. A lot of team-building exercises, knowledge training, and transfer, competitive projects, wonderful teachers at Michigan are what has kept me grounded and continue to strive towards learning and grow in the industry.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

Michigan definitely has one of the very competitive Master’s programs and I have felt confident when anyone references a course from school, I am able to recollect and point that I had learned this in school.

Reflection on Time Spent at U-M

I didn’t participate in a lot of the activities on campus, but I often made it to a lot of the School of Music, Art, and Dance performances on campus. I had enrolled in classes with the Math school on central campus as my minor, and explored into some more environmental engineering classes as well as these were my area of interest outside of Construction. These ended up being very relevant to my overall experience at Michigan. Michigan has an advanced Library and a lot of the information and help for coursework is available at Duderstadt, make full use of it. Advice, for anyone in Civil Engineering, it would be good to do some Business and Architectural school courses, as it might help in overall growth as well. I had not done them and to think of it now, I feel it would have been super helpful. Outside of construction, I am a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, and I have restarted dancing after moving to the Bay area.

Project Engineer – Senior Project Engineer – Estimator – Project Manager. 

Projects: repurposing existing factory into a manufacturing plant, new construction – office building, warehouse, hospital, and high-rise. Working as a project engineer, I gained field experience on project sites. Field experience enables me to better understand design and details, provide more practical solutions and suggestions, and improve communication and interpersonal skills. Also, field experience helps me to be a practical engineer and gives me more confidence when negotiating with designers and contractors. My PE experience also added value to estimating jobs. Understanding construction means and methods is a great benefit for estimators and creating desirable estimating results. Estimating experience accelerated my project management career with project control skills. A quantifiably defendable estimate sets the project up for success.

How does your Master’s degree differentiate you from others?

My undergraduate major is civil engineering with a focus on structural design. Master’s in CM imparts my project management skills, budgeting, scheduling, and other technical skills (for example BIM modeling, Visual Studio). My master’s study and degree help me to stay competitive in the job market for the first 3-5 years. And also, I feel that the growth mindset cultivated in UM will be valuable for my entire career.

Reflection on Time Spent at U-M

I like my study experience in CEE and enjoy those days spent with my classmates and professors. And I joined UM Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) and ASCE (Alumni Chicago trip is a good experience if you want to know what is happening in the real world.) CEE539 is impressive and I believe that Professor Vineet Kamat will encourage you to explore how automation and technology are going to impact the construction industry. My advice to students will be getting some internship and try as many as you can. Find what you like, and love what you choose.