St. Cloud State University

After graduating from SCTCC, I decided to continue my education and go for a Construction Management degree. I didn't just want to draft buildings, but I wanted a larger role with more responsibility, to manage entire building projects from start to finish. SCSU has taught me a great deal of real-world knowledge about all steps involved with construction management. Everything from the preconstruction phases involved before a project can even break ground all the way to the closeout phase, SCSU has taught me what an effective project manager should look like. Throughout this program I achieved a 4.0 GPA and continued to challenge myself to keep doing the best work I could. Listed below are several courses I have taken at SCSU that greatly demonstrate the Construction Managment program:

-CM 436 Scheduling and Estimating

In this course, we were taught about the several different estimating techniques used for bidding projects. We bid on houses by using both the bottom-up estimating technique as well as by creating unit cost models to bid per square foot. We also learned how to effectively schedule by using work breakdown structures as well as Gantt charts. 

-CM 450 Construction Documentation

This class taught us students about what documentation goes on behind the scenes in order to advance projects towards completion. A large portion of this class included analyzing the building plans for a school and creating a presentation on the projects scope of work, bidding information, contract details, as well how individual examples of CSI's MasterFormat construction divisions are represented within the project. As the end of the course, we presented our presentations to local construction business owners and project managers, helping us gain experience in public presentation. 

-CM 437 Construction Materials

This course strongly relates to the building materials course I took while at SCTCC, although this course more heavily focuses on materials used in commercial construction projects. A large focus of this class pertained to steel construction as well as precast concrete construction. 

-CM 438 Construction Safety

Throughout my academic experience at SCSU, safety within construction was always emphasized on its importance. This class focused on OSHA requirements that must be met and exceeded in all aspects of construction practices. A large project in this class was creating our own safety manual, just as any general contractor would have. The safety manual I created ended up being 104-page document covering things such as emergency action plans, PPE overviews, equipment safety relating to scaffolding and fall protection, motorized equipment safety for different lifts and cranes, as well as safety inspection forms. Shown below are selected pages from the safety manual I created. 

Academic Experiences

St. Cloud Technical and Community College

I started my college academic career by attending St. Cloud Technical and Community College (SCTCC), where I majored in Architectural Construction Technology, in short it is the drafting and design of structures. I enjoyed the very detailed requirements needed to create accurate project blueprints in the program. It was quite a challenging program that taught me much about what all goes into designing and drafting structures as well as the building codes that must be met. I achieved a 3.8 GPA throughout this program. Unique and relevant courses I took while attending SCTCC include:

-Intro to CAD, CAD and Design Studio, Architectural CAD 2, and Architectural CAD 3

All of these four classes focused on creating blueprints and drawings of mainly residential structures but also a few light commercial buildings. We learned how to design on both AutoCAD as well as Revit in these four courses. 

-Commercial Design Principles

This class focused heavily on building codes that need to be followed in commercial projects. It also focused on all ADA requirements buildings need to meet. 

-Building Materials 

This course focused on common practical materials used for building in residential and commercial practices. We also learned relevant building techniques as well as sequences. 

-Sustainable Building Systems

In this course, we were taught newer more sustainable building practices that are starting to be implemented within the industry. The industry is seeing a huge push to use more sustainable products and building practices, so this course was very relevant to my future career. 

Below is an example of the drafting work I produced while in the Architectural Construction Technology program at SCTCC. For this project, we were to design and create plans for a duplex style multi-family home.