I am delighted to say that my part-time Graduate Diploma in Building Surveying at UWE in Bristol is coming to an end. Vickery Holman have been fully supportive of this academic study during the course of my employment with the company, generously allowing study leave when necessary and surveyors in all the offices being available to offer guidance to aid completion of coursework.
The first of the two final coursework assignments has been a report on the choice and implementation of a corporate property strategy for a chosen FTSE 100 company (in my case the ever-reliable Tesco PLC!) and the second a report on the current strengths, opportunities, weaknesses and threats presented by the BIM (Building Information Modelling) process to design, construction and its emerging application to (computer aided) facilities management (CAFM).
Alongside the daily responsibilities of project work Vickery Holman are keen to encourage employees of all levels of experience to go forth and network! Exeter has a thriving business social scene with plenty of opportunities to meet people and the good thing is almost everybody you talk to has some aspect of property within their business, so there is always something to discuss. When I started my academic studies in 2017, I imagined building surveying would be predominantly concerned with the technical aspects of the built environment. While technical knowledge is essential, and my technical knowledge has been accumulating at an exponential rate, I am glad to say that surveying and property consultancy is also about communicating with people who use and occupy property. The successful building surveyor must demonstrate a combination of knowledge, application and advice and this makes building surveying a career with endless variety, which, in the words of William Cowper, is of course the spice of life!
