Training quality civil engineers in developing countries is not an easy task given the economic conditions and tight budget for lab activities or on-the-job internships. This situation has been a headache to educators in Vietnam for decades. In order to partially mend this problem, for years, the Ministry of Education & Training of Vietnam imposed fix quotas for the number of Civil Engineering students recruited by each school each year. This is no longer effective now when most universities and colleges in Vietnam have moved from the cohort system to the credit-hour system, and students are free to transfer from one major to another. Using the case study at Duy Tan University in Vietnam, this paper argues that by adopting a series of computer and real-world simulations, the training quality problem for Civil Engineering students can be solved to a significant degree. In effect, at the freshman and sophomore levels, students may practice their lab work and experiments on construction mock-up models and/or construction simulation kits in order to learn how to apply theoretical knowledge in reality such as building concrete blocks, retaining walls, designing truss bridges, etc. From the junior level on, computer simulations will be largely used to teach scenarios and/or phenomena which may not be experimentally reproduced like structural collapse, building explosion, earthquake, etc. The main advantage here is that numerical and computing simulations help students arrive at their learning outcomes much faster while they do not cost that much. As for the senior project and internship, it has been realized that many construction companies or construction consulting firms did not provide students with the complete learning experiences needed during their internship. By creating a simulated settings for the senior projects with students and staff members playing different mock roles besides the actual project being carried out in the actual internship, students can greatly improve on their learning curve for industrial skills and knowledge. While this method does run certain academic and industrial risks, quantitative proofs from our survey have shown improved results in the skill-building process of our students besides their improved level of satisfaction for the complete training process.
Proceedings of the 13th International CDIO Conference in Calgary, Canada, June 18-22 2017