Student Spotlight: Tyson Chambers

My name is Tyson Chambers. I’m from Brandon, Manitoba and I went to high school at Vincent Massey. I just recently completed the Civil Technician program, and I plan on going back for year two and three of the Civil Technology program.

I’ve always enjoyed designing things. In high school, I had a pretty good idea that I wanted to get into civil engineering. There was a drafting class that really piqued my interest, and I was passionate about learning that kind of stuff. It was my drafting teacher who recommended the program at Assiniboine to me, but I was also somewhat familiar with the program already.

I guess you can say it runs in my family a bit because my sister took the Civil Technology program about 10 years ago, back when only one year of the program was offered through the college. She would bring her laptop back home during her studies and work, and I’d be able to check out all the cool stuff she was working on. She’s currently working at J&G Homes, which is also where I’m also working this summer during my co-op placement.

Our co-op work placement lets us work for six months in the industry. I’ve been lucky to do my work placement with J&G Homes. I get to spend time in the office working on drawings for real world projects, researching by-laws and making sure the projects follow building codes. The other part of the job lets me go outside to the actual work sites where we do a lot of surveying and helping with things like locating property pins using GPS. I really enjoy having that split of being both in the office and getting outside to work at job sites.

Within the program, we do a lot of drafting using AutoCAD and surveying. Learning to use AutoCAD was one of my favorite parts of the program. I was able to do some 2D design and 3D design to create house plans and other projects, it’s pretty cool and interests me a lot. During the last few months, a large project I worked on involved designing a house and the floor plans and making sure everything was up to code—basically as real of a plan as one could make if they were going to do it for a real building project. The program is so fast paced, and it surprised me how much we were able to take on and learn in such a short amount of time. It’s very hands-on, and if we aren’t working in the classroom on our laptops, we’re outside using the surveying equipment and GPS.

I’ve got to meet a lot of people in the program from a lot of different places around the world; it was a very diverse program with people of all ages and backgrounds. Some of them even already had a background in civil engineering, so it was awesome to be able to learn from them too. The instructors are all so knowledgeable and with the small class sizes, I felt comfortable asking questions or getting one-on-one time with them if needed.

Over the winter, I played futsal with the Assiniboine Cougars team. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to travel a bit and play competitively. The team gets along really well, and it’s awesome to be able to meet people that I get to hang out with even outside of team events. I’ll also be playing these next few years with the Cougars soccer team. I played a lot of high school soccer in the defense or mid-field positions, and it’ll be fun to play at a higher level competitively.

My goal is to continue the program and finish my second and third year of the program. I want to continue my education and get a civil engineering degree. I’m excited about the possibilities; there are so many opportunities for people in this high demand field of work.