To address employer dissatisfaction with the quality of graduates, Constructionarium was developed in 2003 to develop practical skills for University students. This is a residential initiative where students are tasked to construct scaled-down structures of real buildings within a week. Drawing on the experience and lessons learnt from undertaking Constructionarium at a Northern University in the UK, data was collected over three years through student surveys and interviews with student, academic and practitioner participants. Observational data captured in the students' reflective essays after the events were also used in the analysis. The analysis reinforced the espoused benefits of exposing real-life situations to students, and revealed how quickly students 'conform' to poor practices that are well documented in the academic literature, including lapses in health and safety, inadequate industrial relations and poor time and cost management. These findings indicate the dominance of practice - at times worryingly ill practice - over academic theory. Consequently, there are implications on the extent in which educationalists can facilitate the development of next generation of practitioners who would adopt good practices. Furthermore, the experience challenges the mantra of organisational learning and poses the question as to whether habits of bad practice in industry can ever be unlearnt.
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