How students can develop career-ready, hands-on skills within the construction management field In this episode, Tyra Peirce chats with Dr. Aziz, Associate Professor, University of Washington, a construction management industry expert, who discusses teaching and learning of construction management, including project methods and the benefits a robust software like Oracle Primavera P6 can offer. -------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;09;03 - 00;00;34;12 Welcome to the Oracle Academy Tech Chat. This podcast provides educators and students in-depth discussions with thought leaders around computer science, cloud technologies and software design to help students on their journey to becoming industry ready technology leaders of the future. Let's get started. Welcome to Oracle Academy Tech Chat, where we discuss how Oracle Academy helps prepare our next generation's workforce. 00;00;34;14 - 00;00;57;07 I'm your host, Tyra Pierce. In this episode, I speak with Dr. Aziz, a professor in construction management at the University of Washington. Dr. Aziz and I speak about how learning P6 is helping prepare his construction students for careers. Welcome, Dr. Aziz. Thank you. To start off, can you give me a bit about your background and the class you teach at University of Washington? 00;00;57;14 - 00;01;17;26 But I thank you for having me again. It's a pleasure to be with you. I have a doctoral degree in civil engineering majoring in construction, engineering and management, and I'm an associate professor with the University of Washington. Before joining the academia, I used to work for a civil infrastructure company in Calgary, Alberta. But I had two roles to do. 00;01;17;26 - 00;01;45;11 A project analyst for mega projects and the project control engineer responsible for the development of construction schedules, for the company of projects which mainly were bridges and highways. So that was my main job with the company. In 2003 I joined the University of Washington to teach and research in construction management. Where now I am an associate professor along with teaching the university. 00;01;45;14 - 00;02;11;12 I prefer that we keep in touch with the industry. And so, to convey the latest information and this knowledge to our students of the classes and that's where I have a little bit side work for consulting and training on construction management training and Primavera and other software applications. I get to know Primavera, you could say, since the 1980s, the late 1900s, it is a very long time. 00;02;11;14 - 00;02;33;15 And that was during my studies in Egypt. And then later I used Primavera for several professional and training jobs. And when I joined UDAP, I started to work with Primavera through the Oracle Academy. I teach a number of classes UDAP. So, my first one is the planning and control, and that's for planning and control and scheduling of construction projects. 00;02;33;17 - 00;03;01;17 This is mainly the principles and practices of the critical Path method, the major method that we use in construction management. I also teach the construction computer applications. It's a hands-on lab for software use in the planning and control of construction. And then I also teach the certificate program classes, which also hands on technology is a software application for planning and construction. 00;03;01;20 - 00;03;24;14 Then I have a set of graduate classes for project economics and risk analysis and for the heavy construction estimating. So, you could see that the university keeps me busy with teaching mainly in the construction management area. So, that is a really interesting and unique background. I like how you are still involved in industry in making sure that you're keeping abreast of what is going on. 00;03;24;16 - 00;03;54;14 And so, which is I think while you're very qualified to give an answer to this next question that I have. What are some essential skills that construction management students need to learn? A great question. Construction management students are practical type of students. They are hands on students or learners. And so, in our department, to try to give them the skills that they need to be qualified was in order to practice and do the job quite well in the industry. 00;03;54;16 - 00;04;21;24 As you could see that there is kind of four essential categories of skills that they need to have. First one is to create cost estimates, construction schedules, safety plans. They should be very well and excellent in communication. The management side of the industry. Another one is to ability to have the ability to analyze construction documents, analyze construction methods and materials and equipment so that you will be able to select the proper ones for construction tasks. 00;04;21;27 - 00;04;47;13 You should be able to apply the electronic based technology to manage construction processes and tasks. And that's...
