Sean Ross scanned the room, taking in the students milling around, gripping their resumes. Some wore suits; others wore button-ups and ties. Ross took a deep breath and approached his first company booth of the day. Little did he know the conversations he would have that day would lead to a full-time job offer.
This is common for Cal Poly construction management students, including Ross, a real estate finance major with a construction management minor.
“As a construction management minor going to my first career fair my second year, it was nerve-wracking,” Ross said. “I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was just a kid in a big pond, a small fish, and so I just kind of jumped into it.”
Cal Poly’s Construction Management Career Fair is so big that it will not fit in the Cal Poly Rec Center, which regularly hosts career fairs. Instead, the department hosts over 90 companies at the Alex Madonna Expo Center.
With a 95% job placement rate and a median starting salary of $75,000 for graduates, Cal Poly’s Construction Management Department is considered one of the university’s most successful programs for job placement. Through a strong alumni base, a tight-knit community, and hands-on opportunities, the department has blended academic rigor with real-world preparation.
According to the 2022-2023 Cal Poly Graduate Status Report, the average full-time job placement rate across all majors at the university is 76%.
The department’s success has not gone unnoticed, with enrollment doubling in the last decade. Much of this enrollment growth is due to construction management’s positive job outlook. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment for construction managers is expected to grow by 9% in the next decade.
Real-world preparation is key to the department’s success in job placement. Ross believes this is a big reason employers actively hire Cal Poly students.
“With Cal Poly being one of the stronger programs in California for every major, and then applying that ‘learn by doing’ curriculum to such a hands-on major, such a hands-on degree, you can go to up to a company and say, ‘Yeah, I’ve poured concrete. I did it last week in my lab,’” Ross said. “I feel like that’s where it really stems from.”
CM Administrative Support Coordinator Emma Blair assists with student advising and the department’s daily functions. She has seen firsthand the experiences students in the department get to participate in.
“There’s a preschool close by where they have made improvements to sidewalks,” Blair said. “The Paso Robles Police Department got new stairs put in for their gun range area.” Blair also said that organizations will reach out for help with projects.
Why the construction management department has been successful
Every construction management student has to do a senior project. Many tend to be for a construction company. These projects range from city development to jobs for organizations within the city. Partnerships with companies and organizations like these are essential to the department.
A large part of the job placement success rate is due to industry involvement. According to Blair, many of the department’s industry partners and supporters are alums. They return to Cal Poly to recruit, fund competition teams, and travel to job sites. Last year, the department had an interdisciplinary field trip, which a construction company in the Bay Area fully funded.
“Our faculty members are really wanting to expose the students to all these different opportunities and networking events, and it creates a lot of good outside-the-classroom activities,” Blair said.
The efficiency of the department’s job placement percentage is a testament to their dedication to students and their tight-knit community.
One of these student involvement programs is the Cal Poly Associated Students of Construction Management (ASCM), a student-led umbrella program that organizes student involvement initiatives, golf tournaments, and events for companies to sponsor.
Senior Mason Chamberlin is a board member of ASCM and has seen the opportunities CM provides.
“There’s just a lot of opportunity in CM,” Chamberlin said. “I’d say the best part is the opportunities, and you get what you put out of it. You got to put in some work. It’s not just given to you.”
Chamberlin is in charge of organizing the annual CM Golf Tournament this spring. In addition to the golf tournament, ASCM organizes barbecues to increase a sense of community among students. According to Chamberlin, the CM department helps the student-run club by mentoring and connecting them with the right people who have funding for what they want to do.
Ross also has felt impacted by the professors in the department.
“Most of the professors are so down to earth,” Ross said. “Even though they’ve had extremely successful careers in industry, they come back. They want to give back to Cal Poly, and you can have a real conversation about what the industry is doing.”
The department wants to continue growing, increasing student involvement, creating opportunities, and starting new projects.
“We want to keep up with the job placement, keep up the sense of community that we have, and keep up a lot of the fun projects and initiatives we have,” Blair said.