By Michael P. Magnuson, PE, AVS
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) offered a graduate level (Master’s and Doctoral candidates) civil engineering course on VE in for the first time in January 2016 (Spring Semester). The three credit-hour course was held once a week on Friday evenings 5:00- 7:30 PM. Being a new course expectations were undefined, particularly with a Friday evening class time. Nineteen students applied for the course which was limited to 16 students. The course was taught by UIC Professor of Practice Muthiah Kasi PE, SE, CVS-Life and Michael P. Magnuson, PE, AVS, SAVE International Vice-President of Membership.
The VE Job Plan workshop was divided into 16 sessions. This included lectures, exercises, quizzes, presentations and report preparation. Teaching VE to students is different from teaching to practicing engineers. It has its own challenges and rewards. The students were instructed on VE theory at the beginning of each session. The class was then divided up into small groups and coached with VE exercises, tested with a quiz and worked on their project. The project was a complex intersection in Chicago which was prone to accidents and heavy traffic delays. Mike Magnuson, with his experience in transportation engineering, led them through the logic of transportation basics using function analysis.
Students often worked on their projects past the defined course time. It was gratifying to have some working as a team past 7:30 on a Friday night. The project presentations and final reports were well done.
What was learned?
Introducing Value Methodology at graduate levels is an important activity to stimulate the interest of future engineers. Enthusiasm to learn project management techniques is very high. After taking all the basic engineering courses, VM is an opportunity for students to put everything together on a live project.
This course is unique because it was the first course where students get an opportunity to explore the “Why?” part of a problem. Professor Karl Rockne, Head of the Civil and Materials Engineering, would like us to offer this course next year.
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