New Perspectives in Science Education

Technical building equipment accounts for an ever-increasing proportion of construction and renovation projects and can represent up to 50 % of construction costs. Engineers specializing in smart building technology are therefore in extremely high demand, as they can monitor and coordinate the various aspects of a construction project for the planners involved and the service sector of all trades [1]. The career opportunities after graduation are diverse, and many first-year students simply lack an overview, especially since there is no “typical” smart building engineer [2, 3]. An important part of the training of such engineers is therefore to give them as practical an overview as possible of the industry and possible future fields of activity, and to familiarize them with the various methods of the individual disciplines. Therefore, a module was integrated into the curriculum that also allows many different industry representatives to present their experiences and challenges at work. As part of this lecture series, experienced specialist planners will present their companies and their understanding of interdisciplinary, integrated planning, and discuss challenges in their respective disciplines with the students. The presentation of real, implemented examples, which illustrate key aspects of integrated planning, completes the insight into practice for first-year students. Furthermore, the students are tasked with developing an integrated concept for a small construction project in groups. In this group project, various aspects of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) method were made tangible for the students and applied in a playful and practical way.

Both industry representatives and students gave positive feedback: The experienced planners were pleased to get in contact with young professionals and inform them about their work. The students were interested in the industry contacts and practical insights, even if they were sometimes still a little overwhelmed by the technical aspects. Later in their studies, many students stated that this early insight helped them to better plan their further studies and provided them with contacts in industry, which facilitated the search for thesis topics and student jobs.