B7 Course Reflection Yosep Bak

AE410
B7 - Course Reflection
Yosep Bak
3/14/2016



Starting this class, I thought I was just going to be learning about specifications and more calculation based class. But to my surprise, this class was not about crunching the numbers and memorizing formulas at all. This course was more of an appetizer plate for many of the practical skill sets that aspiring engineers must know, or at least have seen. This class covered many different topics through project and blog post, and although self-research was necessary for the course, proper sources and a large pool of credible information have been given to students. Students were sometimes working in a group to develop a more comprehensive project altogether.

From the projects and assignments, I have acquired many skill sets and information. I was able to learn about different topics of building system development, and I learned mostly about BIM and Green buildings. I was also exposed to databases and sensors from one project which was educational. I enjoyed learning about Microsoft Access because it was simple enough to deliver the concept of database system but complex enough to be applicable in small scale projects. Professor's Evernote Notebook was found to be particularly useful since this is what professor has deemed relevant to the industry. The class was also assigned to create a family in Revit and that assignment was particularly useful because I have first hand witnessed Revit being used at my co-op. Although I was not dealing with modeling Revit, I have seen Revit being used alongside AutoCAD enough to know that being familiar with this software will become useful in the long run.

Guest speakers were also very informative. These speakers were all from the industry and provided the students with a fresh perspective of reality. It is empirical for aspiring engineers to grasp what the difference between textbooks and the industry. Guest speakers efficiently juxtaposed the self-researching aspect that might seem too far fetched for current deployment and kept the class grounded with current standards and applications. I also really appreciated that many of these guest speakers were alumni, and were very open to helping students with anything they can do.


Peer Comments:
Joe Dressel: I am sorry that you did not enjoy the database system. I think that was one of the most unfamiliar assignment we had this term and if it was not for the videos professor posted, I would not have made it at all.

Alexander Koo: I appreciated the BIM assignment as well. That assignment really forced the students to not only produce the result but think like an engineer. I also think that this class is going to benefit me in the long run because although I may not be a professional at BIM or MS Access, at least I have been exposed to the process.

Arthur McCloskey: I am glad that you found the MS access to be useful too. I have seen a whole bunch of comments saying how daunting the process was and even as a digital building concentration, I think managing large data is not appealing to most people.