Told my new engineers that in rough terms the first 2 or so years is for trade craft, up to about 10 years is becoming a professional and maybe some supervision of others, next 10 is honing the craft and moving up, next 10 is creation and inventing, the last 10 is passing the torch more-or-less.
Just learning how to write a good letter, proposal or report is a critical skill and a youngster needs to write a whole lot of them and get beat up a lot by someone who knows how to do all of it.
Had one prof that tried to teach us trade craft and was a stickler but he was too far removed from current industry practice and certainly not company specific.
I always thought the truss on the FIU bridge was oddly irregular and wondered what is wrong with a conventional truss? Moreover, what is wrong with any one of a number of standard steel through truss are cambered arch pedestrian bridges. It just isn’t that complicated. This one they designed didn’t even support the dead load. Sheesh!
Being from Kansas City (Regency Skywalk collapse) I saw the best and the worst.
One Design notable from KU stressed that many designers wanted to capture the viewer with a “how did they do that — Ah Ha moment” and that desire caused problems in cost and in execution.