Taking advantage of your Degree:

Turning it into Your Key to Success

“But it doesn’t end there. It’s about having the mindset to keep your future in your own hands”  was a phrase that held great importance in the interview. This is a phrase that I will surely remember Nosheen Kanwal by, who majored in a field similar to engineering and now manages her own company, known as INN construction (located on 1058 Coney Island Ave, Bk, NY, 11230). Going by the label of construction manager, Nosheen emphasized the importance of searching for jobs that not only lack the female population but also interest you without consuming too much of your time, as after all, time is money in America. In the hour-long interview that we had in her office, which was conveniently located in her house, I realized that her determined and devoted attitude towards college motivated her to fulfil her combined interest of engineering and architecture. She said she wanted something quick and steady, so when she stumbled upon an option that offered her a mix of engineering, architecture, and facility management, she knew this was what she was going to pursue. Combining her early interest in design and problem solving with her dad’s construction company, she decided to follow her father’s path and initiate her own business, where she would supervise engineers and other professions similar to that field.

As a student, Nosheen completed her associates in Construction Management and Bachelors in Facility Management of Technology from the New York City College of Technology. Her degree combined with her 15 years of experience in the construction field industry makes her a great candidate for looking over engineers and architectures within her business. Talking about her time in college was a great part of the interview. I remember she said that going to college with her sister was one of the best experiences in her life since they served as a great support for one another. Jokingly she added that only she was the support for her sister since she was the smarter one. Having an eye for design and data analysis, Nosheen enjoyed taking classes like her Specs/Construction Drawing course, her Bids/Estimations Course, and her Project Management and Planning course. In these courses that she took, the most important takeaways for her were the use of the AutoCAD software and the scheduling software. She dreaded taking her engineering and statistic courses. Her engineering course consisted of tedious calculations and she still remembers how hard it was for her to calculate the building element weights of structures, like beams. As useful as statistics is in her job, she hated it because it was too complicated, as it accounted for too many confounding variables. Nonetheless, it’s helpful in being keen about accounting for those little things which can have a huge impact on the project.

When asked if college really helped her in the long run, she said that everything she learned in college served her well. She added that  “learning it is one thing but learning and applying it to the proper situations is another.” It is very important to comprehend and understand the information you learn so that it becomes a part of your common sense to use the information and apply it to real-life problems.

The interview carried onto how her typical workday looks like and she said it is mostly consistent of client meetings in her office and proper/profession correspondence with her vendors, suppliers, sub-contractors, clients, and the rest of her management team. Analyzing her budget to take on certain projects and hire engineers as well as architectures is also a key aspect of the job. Analyzing the needs for the project ahead of time and forecasting both the budget and schedule, according to the project dates is the heavy load that she must handle. Her day starts off by contacting companies that need projects to be handled by a construction manager and go on to finalize on contract negotiation. Once the deal has been made, the drawings are received and she checks them for any errors. Once all the paperwork is confirmed, she begins to hire workers, like engineers and vendors, for tasks that she knows she won’t be able to balance on her own and the project work begins. Also, emails are important since she receives a hand full of emails every day and it is up to her judgement which ones to reply to. On a more weekly level, paying her workers and updating the schedule is her task. It is very important to take care of the finances and only based off of that can she commit to project scheduling. She calls it a look-ahead schedule because she needs to plan out time in advance to place orders for long-lead items. This helps in the project cost estimation and aids in fulfilling all the blueprint requirements. Additionally, after every project is over, which can vary from one month to even a year, she must complete a budget report. Alongside managing work in the office, regular site visits are very essential to ensure precautions are taken. She added that Monday through Thursday is completely booked for her.

During the interview, she spoke about many of her projects. The MLK courthouse was one of them and in this project, the scope of work was to replace building facade and window joints alongside the entire facade of the powerwash. On a more local level, her team has also done an excavation for the BASIS school, located on 556 Columbia Street, where the job was to measure out and build the concrete sidewalks.

As a person who manages a whole company, she has to look over not only the building aspect of her job but also duties like paying her laborers and making contract negotiations to secure construction sites. She took the initiative to abandon her father’s company to create her own with the degree that she obtained because, in the end, it all boils down to business and making more money. Working under someone will never get you as much money as working for yourself because you can save on so much. Going off that note, you can’t just be creating your company without having certain abilities. She emphasized developing characteristics like responsibility, time-management, and prioritizing. You must create your own efficient strategy to both starts a project and complete it fully under your supervision.

When asked for a last piece of advice, she said that she cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be professional with everyone because you never know when you might need them. She added that it is very important to make professional affiliations and associations in her job because having friends in the field can give you an edge. She said that they can always help you out and then there’s always the benefit of exchanging help or getting work done for a cheaper price. To gain a better picture of this, she provided me with an example. She said just a couple days ago, when the weather was very bad and the snow piled up, she forgot that her sites were also going to be impacted. She contacted one of her subcontractors from American Venture for a dumpster that she could use to quickly remove the snow. He gladly offered her one and that too for a much cheaper price and thankfully she wasn’t fined for any safety violation by a safety inspector.

Coming from a very family oriented background, she desired to give me some personal advice as a note to end the interview off. She acknowledged that as I grow older, I might want to create my own family and as a person who handles both family and work, she thought it was a good idea to offer me advice on that as well. She warned me that it is not easy to manage kids and your own business at the same time because your mind is always at work. She said that even though she works from 9 to 5, she still is thinking about the jobs she still has to do as she feeds her kids dinner. She went back to what she started the interview with and said time is money, so for me, I have to be the most productive and efficient from my 9 to 5 hours.

I am very glad I might Nosheen Kanwal through an acquaintance of my mother, as I feel more confident in approaching my education now. I am now more aware of how one can use their degree to have better control of their life. She ended the interview by saying, “I’ve achieved the best of both worlds: my family and my business, all by creating a business from my degree.”