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A team of students from the Moss Department of Construction Management in the College of Engineering and Computing clinched first place overall in a national construction management competition that promotes careers in the field. The students applied their talents and education to earn the victory over 20 other groups from top universities around the nation.
“This competition has helped me further my leadership and management skills as we collaborated as a team. We were able to all work together quickly thanks to our professor’s guidance,” said Sebastian Eyzaguirre, the team’s leader and an employee of Amicon Management in Miami.
The ABC National Construction Management Competition is an annual event held by the Associated Builders and Contractors, which provides construction management students with an opportunity to showcase their skills and knowledge in a real-world scenario around the construction of a high school in Orlando.
The team of juniors and seniors had six weeks to review and analyze the project plans, create a schedule and quality control plan, estimate the cost of production and labor and ultimately piece together the construction report, or the formal documentation of the project. Each team was timed as it made plan modifications on the spot to accommodate the fictional client’s request for revisions. The teams that moved onto the finals then presented their proposals to a panel of judges, who evaluated the projects based on criteria such as overall quality, safety and sustainability.
The win is the latest from the Moss Department of Construction Management program, which consistently produces high performance students who excel in their careers in the construction industry. The students used what they had learned in courses such as Estimating, Scheduling, and Sustainability to excel in the competition.
The students excelled by relying on knowledge gained in the classroom around such critical topics as estimating costs of materials and labor, creating a timeline that determines the order and duration of construction activities and selecting renewable and recyclable resources wherever possible.
“My previous classes like estimating, scheduling and building codes and regulations helped a lot,” Eyzaguirre said. “Also, my experience as an owners rep at Amicon Management helped me anticipate and answer the judges’ questions.”
The FIU team’s win in the ABC National Construction Management Competition is a testament to the university’s commitment to providing its students with a quality education that prepares them for successful careers in the construction industry. It is also a reflection of the hard work, dedication, and teamwork of the students who participated in the competition.
The FIU team consisted of seniors Sebastian Eyzaguirre, Salena Oshman, Jesus Anaya, Anthony Simon, Christopher Perez and junnior Jovana Mikhaiel. Said Ayman Morad, a Moss professor, “I am honored to be given the opportunity to coach and mentor such bright teams. ”
