<i>New Civil Engineer</i>: Introducing Undergraduate Civil Engineers to Construction Technology

Murray, Michael; Tennant, Stuart

doi:10.11120/ened.2014.00024

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This confirms Trevelyan (2014) who argued that you do not have to be working in an engineering job to develop leadership and team working abilities. Murray et al, (2019) found similar views of civil engineering students employed in non-engineering summer jobs, with self-reported improvements in their communication and teamworking skills. Of note, Evans & Yusof (2020) have argued for students' who secure part time work to consider how this can help demonstrate the skills required in their future professional careers, and, for employers of students to consider how they can assist them in skills development rather than only monetary benefits.…”

Section: Extra-curricular Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 56%

Opportunities for the development of professional skills for undergraduate civil and environmental engineers

Murray

Douglas

2022

European Journal of Engineering Education

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Employability and skills development are contemporary issues in higher education. For vocationalprofessional disciplines such as engineering, the signature pedagogy directs teaching and learning towards acquiring scientific knowledge. Engineering employers have called for graduates to be more work-ready and to be trained in team-working, communication and other professional skills. These skills can be developed and assessed within curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular settings. We consider how a sample of undergraduate civil engineers (N=58) perceive the contribution of the above activities on the development of six professional skills (Problem-solving; Planning; Leadership; Teamworking; Self-confidence; Resilience). Embedding these skills within curricular activities offers the greatest potential for helping all students improve their employment prospects. Finally, we make suggestions for improving the deployment of professional skills in our four undergraduate programmes, and in higher education institutions in general.

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Section: Extra-curricular Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 56%

Opportunities for the development of professional skills for undergraduate civil and environmental engineers

Murray

Douglas

2022

European Journal of Engineering Education

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“…Whilst this truism is apt for many professional disciplines, for undergraduates in civil engineering this statement of fact resonates more profoundly. Despite recent initiatives to introduce civil engineering at 'grassroots' level (see ICE, 2017), the pathway to becoming a professional civil engineer is not addressed prior to university enrolment (Murray and Tennant, 2014) in any substantive manner.…”

Section: Becoming a Professional Civil Engineermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anecdotal evidence indicates that the majority of first year civil engineering undergraduates enrolling at university are both technically and professionally naïve (Murray and Tennant, 2014). Given this dual academic and professional naivety, a meaningful civil engineering curriculum ought to address and give undergraduates access to both academic and situated cognition.…”

Section: Becoming a Professional Civil Engineermentioning

confidence: 99%

Industrial work placement in higher education

Tennant

Murray

Gilmour

et al. 2018

Industry and Higher Education

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For civil engineering undergraduates, short-term industrial work placement provides an invaluable learning experience. Notwithstanding the near-universal endorsement of short-term placement programmes, the resulting experience is rarely articulated through the student voice. This article provides an analysis of 174 questionnaires returned by placement undergraduates studying civil engineering at four higher education institutions in the West of Scotland. The commentary captures industrial placement statistics, employability skill sets and a preliminary semantic interpretation of participants’ testimonies. While the student journey to becoming a professional civil engineer is undoubtedly enhanced by short-term industrial placement, the findings disclose opportunities for university and industry to challenge and affect pedagogical discourse in relation to personal and professional development. The discussion is likely to resonate beyond civil engineering and may serve as a timely reminder of the necessity of periodically revisiting and reinvigorating academia–industry curriculum partnerships.

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“…Thus, new approaches have been recommended in various engineering disciplines; e.g. Mechanical Engineering (Fernandes Teixeira et al, 2007), Electrical Engineering (Wilson et al, 2011), Civil Engineering (Murray and Tennant, 2014) and Chemical Engineering (Glassey et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A possible reconceptualization of food engineering discipline

Niranjan

2016

Food and Bioproducts Processing

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Food industry is critical to any nation's health and well-being; it is also critical to the economic health of a nation, since it can typically constitute over a fifth of the nation's manufacturing GDP. Food Engineering is a discipline that ought to be at the heart of the food industry. Unfortunately, this discipline is not playing its rightful role today: engineering has been relegated to play the role of a service provider to the food industry, instead of it being a strategic driver for the very growth of the industry. This paper hypothesises that food engineering discipline, today, seems to be continuing the way it was in the last century, and has not risen to the challenges that it really faces. This paper therefore categorises the challenges as those being posed by: 1. Business dynamics, 2. Market forces, 3. Manufacturing environment and 4. Environmental Considerations, and finds the current scope and subject-knowledge competencies of food engineering to be inadequate in meeting these challenges. The paper identifies: a) health, b) environment and c) security as the three key drivers of the discipline, and proposes a new definition of food engineering. This definition requires food engineering to have a broader science base which includes biophysical, biochemical and health sciences, in addition to engineering sciences. This definition, in turn, leads to the discipline acquiring a new set of subject-knowledge competencies that is fit-for-purpose for this day and age, and hopefully for the foreseeable future. The possibility of this approach leading to the development of a higher education program in food engineering is demonstrated by adopting a theme based curriculum development with five core themes, supplemented by appropriate enabling and Highlights:  Food engineering is not perceived to be a strategic driver of food business.  A new definition and scope of food engineering as a discipline is presented.  A theme-based approach to higher education curriculum design is also presented.

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New Civil Engineer: Introducing Undergraduate Civil Engineers to Construction Technology

Cited by 5 publications

References 18 publications

Opportunities for the development of professional skills for undergraduate civil and environmental engineers

Opportunities for the development of professional skills for undergraduate civil and environmental engineers

Industrial work placement in higher education

A possible reconceptualization of food engineering discipline

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