Construction Engineering Management MS
Program Purpose
The Construction Engineering Management MS degree offered by Brigham Young University's Department of Civil and Construction Engineering, is designed for students who are interested in deepening and broadening their knowledge of construction and engineering management beyond their undergraduate degrees through a rigorous graduate program that includes research at the forefront of the discipline. The MS degree provides excellent preparation for professional practice and a solid foundation for those interested in continuing their graduate studies. Applicants are encouraged to become familiar with the research interests of graduate faculty members in construction management.
Curricular Structure
CEM graduate students must put together a course of study during their first semester. Typically CEM graduate students will take the graduate level courses offered within the CFM program, and supplement with additional coursework from appropriate disciplines across campus as necessary. MS students can take up to two 400 level coursework as part of their MS curriculum. Recommended CFM courses include: CFM 500, CFM 530, CFM 540, CFM 570, and CFM 580. The CEM graduate degree does have a required research component. Students are encouraged to complete 6 approved credit hours of thesis, although in certain circumstances students might be approved to complete a 3 credit hour project.
Learning Outcomes
Critical Thinking / Decision Making
Demonstrate an ability to collect data, develop and consider alternatives, and select and justify effective solutions that consider external constraints.
Demonstrate an ability to identify and meet the current and future challenges affecting industry, society, and the built environment.
Demonstrate an ability to evaluate technologies and make implementation decisions that solve problems and improve processes.
Demonstrate an understanding of stewardship in the natural, built, and social environments through life cycle thinking and interdisciplinary decision making.
Demonstrate ability to plan, conduct, and share meaningful research using rigorous research methods.
Evidence of Learning
Assessment Tools
A valid assessment plan has been developed to address the assessment needs for the Construction Engineering Management graduate program. The intent of these internal assessment strategies is to continually enhance graduate education within the Department.
Direct Measures
- The Department Graduate Committee is responsible to evaluate theses on a two-year basis for content, validity, and overall contribution.
- Admissions standards are evaluated on a yearly basis to verify if they are continually consistent with the Department's graduate study goals and intents.
- Completing students are required to experience an exit interview.
Indirect Measures
- Graduates are tracked and surveyed at two and five years out to evaluate credibility to their graduate study experience.
- Incoming graduate students are evaluated yearly to understand the demographics of entering students and the validity of our program as it appears to the professional world.
Learning and Teaching Assessment and Improvement
The Construction Engineering Management graduate program continually monitors the achievement of the degree objectives and learning outcomes, and makes appropriate changes each year. The department graduate committee meets regularly to discuss graduate program issues, propose changes, and improve student learning. Changes approved in these meetings are implemented through the normal academic processes, as soon as the next cycle of changes permits. The following formal mechanisms are currently in place for evaluating and improving student learning at the graduate level:
1. Institutional reviews of graduate program.
2. Yearly faculty stewardship interviews with department chair.
3. Student feedback from course evaluations.
4. Department advisory board recommendations and feedback.
5. Yearly department retreat.