As of this afternoon, I'm officially a Construction Management minor, as well as an ARCH major. This involved more running around than I care to go into, but when I did eventually get the right paperwork to the right person, it was a matter of a frank discussion about getting into classes (hard; CM is an impacted program; there are techniques for getting into classes, but it needs persistence) and timing for the nine required classes, then a signature filed in the office.
Construction Management is managing the construction phase of a project, making a budget, bidding it, setting up a timeline, making sure everybody shows up when they're supposed to and does what the plans say. It's what contractors do. It's what architects SHOULD do, but chose not to in favour of being artists, heaven knows why. Here's the result: Construction Management majors get recruited out of college with lots of bribery and competition over them for the many open positions. Architecture majors have to fight 200 other applicants tooth and claw for one low-paying design job that they hunted for a year to find. I'd do a double major but I can't quite swing that and the Master's program in the fourth and fifth years.
