The construction management major prepares students for professional business careers in the construction industry.
Construction management students learn technical, financial and managerial skills and information. These skills ensure graduates the ability to coordinate, to manage and to overlook an entire construction process. The program puts more emphasis on business management than engineering.
Meredith Scelfo, a junior construction management major, decided to study construction management after meeting professors and alumni at a ULM Alumni Association function and speaking to construction professionals.
Scelfo said she wants to go into residential construction after graduation because of the ability to build “something that people can benefit from every day.”
“Although construction management seems like a male-dominant field, there are more women in the field than one would expect,” Scelfo said.
The program surveys major fields within the construction industry such as residential, commercial, industrial, highway and civil projects. The program also covers significant aspects of the industry including building codes and regulations, facilities operations, logistics and materials, project estimating and planning and risk management.
Sarah Beth and Colby Allen are senior construction management majors and a married couple. They both started out as kinesiology majors and switched to the construction management major around the same time.
Sarah Beth Allen said she became a construction management major because she completed a summer program that dealt with aspects of construction and interested her.
Her husband Colby Allen chose the major due to his appreciation for the overall process.
“I like to see how something comes up from nothing,” Colby Allen said.
Colby Allen said the program allows students to form connections with each other and to network with professionals.
Sarah Beth Allen agreed and said it is “definitely a community” where majors can sit and talk with one another.
Though internships are not required for graduation, faculty members in the department still offer to help find internships for students in the major to help prepare them and to form professional connections.
Students can join the Sigma Lambda Chi honor society and the Construction Guild after completion of specific academic requirements.
The job hiring rate for the program’s graduating classes is 100 percent, according to ULM’s Construction Management department website.
