The student’s experience begins with an all-day hybrid Orientation Day, held from 08:00 to 17:30, in mid to late February. The main venue is the CESA Velocity training venue in Paulshof, Johannesburg, with simultaneous live online sessions from venues situated in one or two additional large cities, each hosted by a Convenor. Students unable to travel to the Orientation Day may participate virtually via CESA’s Zoom platform.
Thereafter, the students attend weekly compulsory online classes, which take place every Tuesday afternoon and generally run from 12:45 until about 17:30. During the online classes the students undertake many group activities. The overall programme is split into three trimesters and there is a 2–3-week break between trimesters.
Students may contact the Module Convenors assigned to the relevant trimester for any subject‑related queries, while designated Convenors are available to provide advice, support, and assistance with overall programme participation.
The five modules comprising of Consulting Engineering Environment, Project Delivery, Legal & Contract Law, Business and Project Finance and Interpersonal Skills are presented by experienced facilitators, who are subject matter experts (over 15 different specialists) on various topics. Each module is led by a module convenor.
In between the weekly online classes, the students are required to dedicate additional time to independent research, and to complete and submit pre-set written Assignments (typically two per week) via the CESAnet. The assignments are designed with the expectation that each student will spend approximately 4–5 hours completing them. In practice, however, the actual time required can vary significantly depending on factors such as the complexity of the topic, the student’s prior knowledge, research skills, and individual working pace. The students are given individual and detailed feedback about every assignment which they submit via CESAnet, and this feedback is also automatically copied to their workplace mentor.
The Convenors and Facilitators provide Students with most of the support and guidance they will need. However, many assignments and activities are based on real workplace situations, and students are expected to conduct research and gain information from their workplace. This is where the workplace mentor can assist by giving guidance to the student as to where to source information and to facilitate the process. The firm’s confidentiality will be always respected, and the students will not be required to be given access to any information which their firm may consider to be confidential.
The student’s Workplace Mentor has an important, but not onerous, role to play during the above process. From time to time, the Workplace Mentor will receive feedback from the CESA NPC and/or the Convenors about the student’s progress and other issues, and any concerns from either side may be communicated via the Convenor. The workplace mentor should also deal with any workplace issues and work commitments which may affect the student’s progress on the programme. The student will receive huge additional benefit if the workplace mentor can make the time available to have regular meetings with the student to review assignment material and to relate what is learnt in the classroom with the reality of the workplace. In this way the student will be enriched by the workplace mentor’s knowledge and experience.
It has been our experience that most of the students comfortably manage the workload, but every year we find that one or two struggle, and unfortunately sometimes they drop out, despite all efforts to provide the support and assistance they require.
