THERE ARE FIVE COMPULSORY STAGES THAT YOU FIND YOURSELF AS A YOUNG SITE ENGINEER/BUILDER/ARCHITECT:
THE FIRST STAGE : ( THEORETICAL STAGE)
This stage is when you are in school doing Dy/Dx plus Engineering Survey, Building Construction and Building Technology learning about form follow function, etc, etc.
Here you are more concerned about theoretical aspects.
This is when you know how to calculate structural load, take moments, resolve forces, and the like.
THE SECOND STAGE : ( EXPERIMENTAL STAGE)
This is when you are on putting the theoretical aspect of what you have been taught in school into reality on site.
This is the time you do a little thing and a bricklayer will correct you.
Your practical ignorance will be obvious to many.
It is a period of “What’s the meaning of this?”.
Your boss likewise will call you, hold you by the hand and give you directives.
Then you are learning and combining the theoretical and the practical meaning you are now seeing the reality of it.
You are getting it right little by little.
THE THIRD STAGE : ( REALITY STAGE)
This is when you are now on your own.
You want to put into practice, what you have learned in school in comparison to what you have learned from your boss or directly from those you are surrounded with at work.
Sometimes something may happen on-site that you have never experienced during the time with your boss which would make you sit down or call a friend, do some research, gather people together or come online, etc, to find the solution(s).
THE FOURTH STAGE : (SELF DECISION MAKING)
This is when you take crucial decision(s) on your own, based on the first, the second, and the third stages.
Then you understand the reason(s) why something will work, and while some will not work.
Sometimes you can still try some things because now you have the boldness and the belief that your consultations and experience will work but you must not make any mistakes because the whole problem is in your head.
For instance, you go to the site only to see some parapet beams being defective with the only option to break them and start all over again.
THE FIFTH STAGE : (BOSS MAN STAGE).
This is the stage when you put into REAL practice, the experiences and the knowledge both theoretical and practical, that you have gathered through your boss, bricklayers, and on your own.
All the year experience will be working wonderfully.
The time to be on your own, training yourself. You then come to the “boldness stage” and you’re full of the assurance that this will work, that will not because you have tried it before, it had failed and you have done it over and over again and you have got it.
It is in this stage five you can boldly tell somebody that this thing will fail and it will.
If you at this stage tell somebody a thing will work, it will.
But for instance, in your second stage, you can argue that it will work but will not work because you are not 100 per cent sure what the result will even be. Another example of when you are in the fourth stage, your arguments begin to reduce because now, you are already becoming experienced having practiced and tested things in stages one to three.
So when you get to the fifth stage, you already know what is accurate and what will not be accurate.
So, in case anybody wants to argue with you, all you do now is to keep quiet. When the chips are down, they will surely come back to you.
There’s no way you can compare somebody with 5 years of experience in construction with someone with working experience and exposure.
I mean someone that is not doing anything. There’s a lot to learn. Let us endeavor to have the willpower to learn.
Construction has evolved. I read a lot of stuff that is construction-related.
I research on YouTube etc, etc but yet, people argue. When in this situation, I just decide I don’t think I have any power again.
If you enjoy doing it that way, then continue. The results are not far-fetched.
Engineering is in an association that is why you see all these companies partner together.
We just make sure what we do is accurate and correct.
In summary, please don’t skip any stage(s) for selfish interest. Don’t jump from the first stage to being Bossman. Follow the process to get the result.
We are going to reach our goals very soon.
Always remember I love you all.
©Engr.Adeboye Adeyinka
®Woli the Builder.