Student rising in a tough world

A rising star in the world of quantity surveying predicts that the environmental impact of rapid urbanization will lead to more stringent green building legislation in the future, and that technology, among other disruptors, will lead built environment professionals to become increasingly specialized.

Avery busy and committed student indeed, Nthabiseng Motlatle is the Chairperson of the Association of South African Quantity Surveyor’s (ASAQS’) Wits Student Chapter. She is studying towards her honours degree in Construction Management and works as a student quantity surveyor at the multinational Turner & Townsend’s Illovo office, which she says is her biggest opportunity yet.

The student

At Wits, Motlatle leads a team of undergraduate tutors at the ASAQS Wits Student Chapter, who assist students with tough quantity surveying subjects and modules. Throughout the year, they create polls to find out which subjects are presenting difficulties for students. Later, tutors who have excelled in those subjects are paired with the students accordingly. The tutors are mostly senior and final-year students who can include the time spent tutoring as part of their practical experience hours, which needs to be submitted as a requirement to pass each year of study at the University’s School of Construction, Economics and Management. The tutors source student assignments and past exam papers, which they then work through with their students.

Motlatle says that helping students to pass gives her a sense of relief. Knowing how easy it is to pass the subjects when the information is conveyed in a way that resonates with a student is rewarding because she knows the time and financial costs of repeating subjects are high.