The traditional teaching method in higher education in Colombia focuses on memorizing processes and theories, taking notes and repeating them and paying attention to the permanent protagonist of the classroom, who is the professor. In this way, the student is distanced from the construction of knowledge and favors student desertion and academic mortality, which prevents the development of key competencies to develop in the social and work environment. This research approached a methodology of knowledge construction outside traditional stereotypes, based on project-based learning applied in Civil Engineering, in several universities: Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios-UNIMINUTO, Juan de Castellanos and Universidad Santo Tomás de Tunja, years 2012 to 2020, in the academic spaces Introduction to Engineering and Research Methodology. It was done in different semesters, with the guidance of the principal investigator and the work of nine monitors and the collaboration of about two hundred and fifty students. Surveys, interviews, observation grids and field diaries were applied to students with a selective sample