Project management MSc pupils graduate

‘The industry had recognised that there was a misalignment of academe and industry in terms of what academe were delivering in terms of the skills and abilities of the people coming out of courses,’ says White.

But White was frustrated by a lack of action, so took matters into his own hands and approached University College London’s Bartlett School, which developed the course.

The two-year course is aimed at experienced practitioners who have been marked out as future leaders. It’s a challenging course. Students attend a series of week-long residential sessions with lecturers from the university and industry, followed by research projects within their own businesses, report-writing and presentations.

‘The difference between this course and my first degree was that this was about changing your way of thinking rather than learning data and facts. It’s not so much the what but the how,’ says Katy Dowding, corporate projects manager at Skanska. Dowding adds that much of the benefit came from learning about other students’ businesses through presentations and discussion.

The Interdisciplinary Management of Projects course is sponsored by BDP, Buro Happold, Bovis Lend Lease, Davis Langdon, John Doyle Group, Land Securities, Mace, Schmidlin, Skansak, Taylor Woodrow and WSP.

Fees for the course are £16,300 for two years.

To find out more contact Andrew Edkins on Andrew.edkins@ucl.ac.uk

Visit our archive at www.construction-manager.co.uk to read ‘New sole mates’ (CM, July/August 2005) about efforts by industry and academia to get together.