Former Construction Management Program student Jose Sanchez. Photo by L.A. Daily News.

The housing market in the U.S. is bouncing back, and a select group of students from California State University, Northridge are ready to take advantage of the upswing thanks to the university’s Construction Management Program, a program of CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

According to realestateabc.com, national sales of homes are up 9.7 percent over last year’s number, and former program students like Jose Sanchez ’12 (Construction Management) are immediately ready to work as building project managers. To get the Bachelor of Science in Construction Management, which is accredited by the American Council for Construction Education, students take a variety of classes that will reflect their workdays in the real world, from calculus to soil mechanics to business and real estate law.

“We teach them to solve problems and come up with innovative solutions,” Mohamed Hegab, a construction management professor and industry consultant who designed CSUN’s program curriculum, told the L.A. Daily News. “The construction economy is up. People are working. Salaries are good. For students, it’s a very good time to be in the Construction Management Program.”

For Sanchez, it allowed him to enter a workforce at a place where he feels he belongs.

“I enjoy it — love it,” he told the Daily News about his job at Bernards builders and management services offices in San Fernando. “Every day, I’m learning. In my head, this is where I wanted to be: at a company where I can definitely grow.”

To read more about the CSUN Construction Management Program, visit their site.

For more: Builders Team with CSUN to Train Graduates Savvy in Construction [L.A. Daily News]

Alumni, College of Engineering and Computer Science, CSUN Construction Management Program