“Folks that get into the university have made a conscious decision to go into engineering,” she says. The initiative also is intended to draw in students who otherwise might not have considered a career in infrastructure, says Lord-Levins. Students will be instructed on what tasks the various project team members will be expected to perform, and once they are familiar with the tools, they will be able to work on infrastructure designs in a project-based workflow much like those in the industry today. “For example, say, if there is a bridge there, and another road system is coming in, what’s the general workflow look like?”
Many of the sample projects in the training modules are based on real projects, he adds.
Trivedi sees workflows and assignments within the portal as serving two hypothetical types of students-those who want to learn the functionality of the software as well as those who want to use it within the broader context of the project cycle and surrounding environment.