Wesley Joyce on Should certain courses be taught by ex industry professionals?
Wesley Joyce
Should certain courses be taught by ex industry professionals?
Claims and stances
Transcript
- 0:00 So this is my fourth and final year here at Georgia Tech, and as a construction management major, I would say probably 80% of my construction classes have been taught by ex-industry professionals who have since come back to teach either as like a passion project or they're getting their PhD and then going back into the industry.
- 0:25 But the other 20% of my classes have been taught by what I don't know if this is the correct term, but I would say pure academics, as then people who got their undergrad, went straight into grad school, became an assistant professor, lecturer, and have just continued to teach.
- 0:44 And construction is an industry that is resistant to change and things are changing, and tech likes to be at the forefront of all change.
- 0:57 And so, you know, when I when I get to these, for example, my I'm in a class right now, it's called Integrated Construction and Design, and it's about the new contract types that are starting to take over in the market.
- 1:13 And when I say starting to take over, these integrated as in general contractors and um architects working together, they still only amount to about 10% of all contract types, and it's something I probably won't see for, you know, it could be 15 years into my career before I work on a site like that.
- 1:33 Um it's being taught to me by a woman who's very smart, but she's never worked for a general contractor, and she's never managed any of these contracts she's teaching me about.
- 1:45 And she's done, you know, extensive research on the outcomes of these projects, but she hasn't lived the experience.
- 1:55 And the guest speakers she brings into the class are also you know, academics from Georgia Tech who are writing their thesis on these topics, but also have no lived experience with it.
- 2:08 So, you know, when I'm writing my reflections about all these case studies and whatnot, it almost feels like I'm just talking about you know, like pretend scenarios because these are just like random case studies she generates.
- 2:26 And that and I and I feel I and also I just am more willing to listen to somebody who has real world experience and has walked what I'm about to walk in the early stages of my career.
- 2:38 So I feel like this class is a good example of a class that you should have a required um you should have industry experience with different contract types to teach us about them.
- 2:52 Like she's learned the same thing I've learned about the I mean on a more extensive level, but she's never gone into the real world and seen this.
- 2:59 And so I think this is you know, I talked a lot about construction in this, but I think this is applicable to a lot of things that are you know like um real real world application.
- 3:09 Like how can you teach the real world application when you've never applied it in the real world?
- 3:13 So I want to hear y'all's thoughts on this because I know there's probably some professors who are better than others, but I feel like I've been wasting my time with this class, and I don't think she's a good professor for it.