Meet Kai: BIM Master's student
Kai from Australia is studying for his master’s in BIM and Digital Built Environments to help develop his career as a digital construction expert in the UK. Read on to find out how the course is helping him improve his cross-discipline knowledge.
Journey to the University of Salford
I was already working for a UK main contractor in a strategic BIM & Digital Engineering focused role, so I took the course as I wanted to develop my knowledge and signal my expertise in BIM, digital construction, and digital transformation more generally.
I chose Salford because it's one of the most established of the “BIM Masters” programs in the industry, and ahead of joining the course I felt the course modules were relevant and interesting. During my time studying, the vocational nature of the subjects studied meant I could apply the material to my work as I learnt it. This resulted in me retaining a lot more knowledge than you might typically expect from studying a postgraduate course. The ability of the course material to be applied in real-life settings became an important advantage for me.
This course was also recommended to me by my industry peers and colleagues.
Applying concepts to real-life projects
I picked the project and production management module over the sustainable design module as I left design many years ago, so this was more relevant to my area of work within construction project management. This module helped me learn more cross-discipline knowledge around the planning process, project inception, and construction programming and scheduling theory and practice.
My favourite module was the Lean Integrated Design and Production module – I really enjoyed learning about that subject. It's very insightful and readily applicable to real-life project settings once you understand the concepts, so I learnt a lot of good practical tools from that module.
I am now working as a Technical Director in AECOM, an American multinational infrastructure consultancy, engineering, and construction firm. I'm developing and leading both digital construction strategy and implementation on major civil infrastructure programmes and projects in the UK and Europe. The course has helped me in my career, and it's taught me a lot. I feel it's equipped me well for the future, as well as my current role. Once I've graduated the hard part will be to figure out what to do next!