Today, Crookston High School’s Junior Community Projects class had a visit from the Minnesota State University Moorhead’s Assistant Professor of Construction Management, Jay Cournia, to recruit some of them into the University’s Construction Management program and the Trades and Construction Management programs. Crookston’s Community Projects teacher and Cournia’s fellow classmate Travis Oliver invited him to talk to his seventh-period class about their opportunities working in Construction Management and life in the Construction Industry.
Cournia gave a presentation with a slide show explaining the different kinds of work the students could do in construction and the type of benefits and education they would get going to Minnesota State University Moorhead. “I was trying to get people aware of what’s going on in construction. It’s a high-demand career right now, promoting those high salaries, high job placements, we’re at 100% job placements at MSUM, high starting salaries, which is good for our students and good for our future careers,” said Cournia. Throughout his program, he spoke to the students about his time working on jobs and the many experiences he and others at MSUM have had. He wants to show them that construction is more than just hard and dirty work. “You come to these presentations, and you understand that everybody has a different career path and where they want to go. But you try to get the program out there, try to get them involved, try to see the construction side of it,” said Cournia. “When people think of construction, they think of getting their hands dirty and getting messy all the time. Well, construction is that way, but there’s also the management side of it; someone has to oversee the project, take control of it, deal with the owner, deal with the CEO and president. And that’s where our program steps in and fills that gap.”
With this success, he hopes to make more visits up to Crookston in the future to meet with students again. “I enjoy coming down and talking to Travis, and we’re more than likely to come back again for more visits and try and make it a yearly thing, if not the spring and fall semesters as well,” he said.
Pictures of Cournia’s presentation and his interactions with the students and Oliver can be found below. We will be continuing to check in with the Community Projects Class as they complete more projects throughout the year and other activities around the school.
