B7 – Course Reflection Samuel Kim

B7 – Course Reflection Samuel Kim

This Intelligent Building course was useful in various ways for me to further explorer different aspects of BIM applications, artificial intelligence and databases. As a senior civil engineering student at Drexel University, I had worked on BIM applications such as AutoCad 3D and SketchUp. By taking this course I was able to use Autodesk’s Revit to build a BIM model which I would not have a chance to practice if I didn’t take this course. Revit is more widely used as BIM applications than AutoCad 3D or SketchUp in the industry and this course had prepared me to further explore and develop my skills of Revit.  

Artificial intelligence is vastly growing in the industry right now. AI reduces physical labors, replicates necessary decisions and it allows virtual connectivity. AI serves for many purposes in like medical applications, digital assistants, Error reduction, daily application, and more. Learning about AI in this course was a huge improvement in my understanding of AI and prediction of how AI will affect the world in the future. Digital assistants like Siri from Apple and Alexa from Amazon are already being used widely by consumers. This type of AI helps from reminding day to day tasks to ordering office supplies by just talking. AI also had its disadvantages. It can lead to more unemployment, it has no improvement with experience, and there is less original creativity. The world will soon rely more on AI and I feel that we need to balance the advantages and disadvantages of AI to guide the AI development into a right direction.

Before taking this course, I had no idea how MS Access is used and what it was for. Learning about databases and doing practices using MS Access was an eye-opening experience for me because databases do so much for us. They allow to reduce overall time using vast amount of information, allows to link data, lets search specific past information quickly, improves data security and more. A Database is used in all most every company to enhance their work optimization. Having a guest to explain us about databases was a enjoyable and informative experience for me as well.

In overall, I learned about BIM, AI, and databases, sensors and other important contents in this course. These topics better prepared me to be ready for my future experiences working as a civil engineer. The contents explored in this course had guided me to find the areas I should focus to learn for my future career as a civil engineer.  

 

SOURCES:

Weil, Michael. "Are Smart Homes Ready For Prime Time In The HVAC Industry?". Contractingbusiness.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.

"Benefits And Risks Of Artificial Intelligence". Medium. N.p., 2017. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.

Reddy, Krishna. "Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence." WiseStep. N.p., 10 Aug. 2016. Web. 14 Mar. 2017.

 

COMMENTS:

Yosep Bak: I also enjoyed having experienced guest speakers to learn about their areas of work. It was interesting and inspiring to hear about the information with real world examples.

Egla Qori: I agree with you that instead of learning one topic in-depth in a course, I liked how this course covered a wide range of topics. This helps me to understand the important concepts in the industry that I was not fully aware of.

Joe Dressel: I also had some difficult time learning the database in this class. I had not prior knowledge about this topic at all in the beginning and I taught myself from the scratch. However, I will keep improving my database skills because I see that I may have to work with it in the future.