Construction Institute Every summer, the ASCE Construction Institute collects some of the most impressive civil engineering college students – application-only – for five days of networking, learning, and a real-world, bid-challenge team competition.
It’s called CI Student Days, a rite of passage for many young civil engineers entering the profession.
This year’s Student Days featured a record number of participants (49) in the July sun of Costa Mesa, California. The participants divided into eight teams and worked into the early morning hours each day/night on the CI Heavy Civil Challenge, which this year tasked students with pitching bids on constructing a pedestrian helical ramp for the 6th Street Viaduct Bridge in Los Angeles. The proposal required each team to submit its approach to the project’s construction management, including cost estimation, project scheduling, risk and HSE management plan, QA and QC strategies, site layout, and communications management.
Luis Segovia Student Days is supported by event sponsors and individual donors, members of the Construction Institute Board and local ASCE volunteers. But one of the especially unique things about the event is that the program is primarily built by the CI Young Professionals Council (this year Nathan O’Donnell, A.M.ASCE, served as the program chair), meaning that the students are connected at every level to easily relatable working civil engineers just a few years older than them.
This year’s winning student team was APEX Construction, captained by Luis Segovia – a recent graduate of Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico – and including fellow students Christopher Chau, Jalen Cunanan, Emma Miernicki, Jake Moreno, Claude Springer, and Vadim Uzdensky. Segovia is the first international student to captain the winning Student Days team. Miernicki won the Best Speaker Award, while Moreno won the Social Media Award.
For Segovia, Student Days was both a curtain call to his college days and a preview of potential future work in the United States. He started his career this summer as a junior project manager for a general contractor, already working on big infrastructure projects in Monterrey. Recently, he talked with Civil Engineering Source about what he’s learned about leadership and all things Student Days.
Civil Engineering Source: Congratulations on captaining the winning team at Student Days. What was the experience like?
Luis Segovia: It was fun. Honestly, I think it’s one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had throughout my young career.
I've always loved being involved in this type of project with all the student groups at my university, so it was great. I really enjoyed talking with the YPs [young professionals]. They were super helpful.
Source: What was it about your team that you think allowed you to work so well together?
Segovia: I feel like we managed to bond pretty quickly. At first, we did have a learning curve, but once we moved past that, we all knew what to do and supported each other.
Construction Institute We all took it seriously, but at the same time, we weren’t that focused on winning. We were more focused on just what we had to do and how we had to do it. So it was more about deciding how things were going to be done and trusting each team member.
I never felt like anyone had a problem with anyone; we all just wanted to do our best.
So, it was just mainly about trusting each other and combining all our different skills into one single project.
Source: Which, of course, is a big part of being a leader. What did you learn about leadership?
Segovia: I've always loved being a leader, and I’ve always tried to take initiative in a lot of things.
I feel like the main thing I learned at Student Days was trusting my teammates. I don’t always have to be the smartest in the room. I took a step back and let the rest of my team do what they were good at, too, and tried to point them in the right direction. So I learned from them, and I hope they learned from me.
Learn more about CI Student Days.
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