B7: Reflection on Course

I learned a lot of things in this class that I would not have otherwise known. The most interesting aspect of it was seeing the difference in educations between civil and AE majors at Drexel. As a civil major with a concentration in geotechnical engineering, it's rare that I see this aspect of the curriculum. The focus on not just buildings, but how people themselves interact with them, was fascinating. However, I also appreciated that Professor Mitchell kept the course open to any forms of emerging technologies, such as construction automation, database design (albeit elementary lessons there), and the final open ended project to discuss whatever we found most interesting. The class itself, though long each week (but maybe that's just because I have another lecture right beforehand), was never uninteresting. We always discussed something new- rarely was I sitting in the class thinking "Oh man, I have to learn about this again? So bored with that." I especially liked the focus in the first few weeks about not just what automation could do, but what some of the consequences of it would be, industry wide. Really opened my mind up, even if I do somewhat fear that a robot will take over my employment at some point.

Comments

Taylor Castonguay: I think your fears of "forgetting how to use Revit" are pretty valid. In my second co-op, I used AutoCAD daily, but then I had a year straight of classes and had forgotten so much stuff by the time I went back to co-op (which was even at the same company and I didn't have to relearn standards. I just straight up was out of practice). I wish Drexel offered more classes with a focus on computer technologies. This class was very light, in that the Revit/database projects were really only a glossing over of the respective software capabilities, but at least the projects allowed us to jump back on board, as you said.

J Schwakoff: I agree that the guest speakers really aided to the class. I've been in courses where the guest speakers just mean an excuse to skip *cough*Doc's transportation class*cough* but here I was very intrigued by what they had to say. Unfortunately, I was unable to see several speakers due to personal time constraints, but the ones I did see (Kayleigh and Travis) really helped explain some of the finer details and real world applications of the course.

Mark Bancroft: You mentioned that your biggest takeaway was that we should all learn BIM, regardless of our professions due to it's future as an industry standard. This reminds me of what Professor Mitchell said about all the drafters being out of work now, due to computerized drafting technologies. I also remember seeing a breakdown in the BIM textbook describing how the amount of time in design using BIM shifts more towards project management and less towards the "drones" in an engineering firm (not demeaning any of those fine people). I would say that learning BIM is not just a wise choice, it may be the only choice for anyone who wants to advance up the engineering ladder in the future.