The CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT STUDENT ORGANIZATION
x Kent State University
What is a Student Competition and Why Should I Join?
Regardless of what competition you decide to join, across them all you will learn a lot, meet many new people, and improve your hard and soft skills. Student competitions allow for you to have the opportunity to work on a proposal in a less stressful, but very competitive environment. Depending on the competition, students will spend months preparing a proposal in packet form complete with all elements in the RFP. You will learn more about how to read drawings, estimating, scheduling, safety plans, quality control, and so many other aspects of a proposal. Joining a student competition gives you applicable job experience and can increase your classroom performance. It is completely up to you on how involved you want to become with your team. It can be a lot of work, but it is incredibly rewarding.
Presenting
In addition to the packet proposal portion of the competition, teams prepare a visual overview of their proposal. Students will present in front of a panel of judges, their peers, and/or industry professionals (depending on the competition). These presentations are well rehearsed and reviewed. Judges will ask follow-up questions and require students to think on the spot about their work. The teams are judged on a combination of the content of their proposal packet and the quality of their presentation. Being a part of the presenting team gives you an opportunity to show your confidence and knowledge as an individual. High scoring and team placement may result in a scholarship earned for the student chapter.
Convention
The conventions that students will attend provide a tremendous amount of knowledge and networking opportunities. These include professional development workshops, industry technology fairs, keynote presentations, and more. Many of the conventions also offer career fairs, where students have received internships and full time offers. Convention provides students with multiple days to network with industry professionals and other students from all across the country.
Traveling
The CMSO is fortunate enough to be able to send a team of students* to each competition event that we participate in, at no cost to the students. Students work tirelessly on their proposals for each competition and are rewarded with the opportunity to attend the competition and convention. Events in the past have been held in: Massachusetts, Arizona, Florida, California, Ohio, Nevada and other states.
Student travel will be determined upon participation level throughout the entire duration of the competition season.*
