Work and study offer mutual reinforcement

In September, I entered the final year of my degree in building control, having successfully completed three years of academic study and workplace training.

In my final year, I am looking forward to developing my academic skills, producing coursework and written assignments and also building a portfolio of my workplace activity.

It should demonstrate the project management, site inspections and other responsibilities I have undertaken in my job, and how I have applied my knowledge and skills.

I hope to document a range of both domestic and commercial projects, my input into these, and what I have learned while working on them.

Writing the inspection reports for these has allowed me to develop my technical knowledge and consolidate my learning on site.

The experience has also been extremely valuable in reinforcing my understanding of key technical areas of commercial construction, such as fire safety and structure generally.

I thoroughly enjoy watching projects progress – seeing a building through from the initial stages to completion is extremely rewarding, whether it is a small house extension or a large industrial warehouse.

I particularly enjoyed the construction technology module as the reading and subject matter directly corresponded with my role as an assistant building control surveyor, covering topics such as fire safety, civil engineering, contaminated land and inclusive design.

Areas such as these where I can use in my work what I have learned in the classroom are extremely engaging. This contributes to my overall progression, as I have an in-depth understanding of the topic and the construction methods I see daily.

I can then in turn demonstrate this knowledge in written assignments, where we are asked to discuss particular topics in relation to a given construction scenario. I find these assignments helpful as practice for writing formal reports for colleagues and clients in future.

On this module I was able to take a more creative approach, as we were tasked to design a building to a certain specification and deal with these crucial requirements.

I found light to be one of the most interesting topics, as positioning a building and determining the appropriate locations for glazed areas can significantly affect users' overall comfort levels.

This module also allowed me to develop my technical drawing skills with guidance on the correct methods, and drawings of chosen designs incorporated into my final assignment. As someone who previously studied art and is interested in architecture, I thoroughly enjoyed practising this skill.

Although design and architectural drawings are not part of our job as building control surveyors, it is nevertheless important to understand how crucial and detailed the planning and design stage of a project is and the key role of certain elements.

It has been an extremely rewarding experience thus far, and I relish working in an industry where there are always new things to learn.