B6 Course Reflection

This class has opened my eyes to a lot of new technologies that I had never had exposure to before. I think that there are many advances that our Co-Ops can't prepare us for, so we cannot anticipate by the time that we are ready to join the field for our careers. In some ways it made me feel behind, I am so close to graduation and there was so much about the AEC industry and the technological capabilities of Intelligent Buildings and construction that I did not learn about until this term. I hope that in actuality, this small amount of exposure has been enough for me to be able to make career decisions from, and at least be able to have a radar of which companies are going to be technologically focused, and which ones will be dragging behind the industry.

My favorite parts of this class were learning how to use Dynamo and the Access database. Ever since taking a database class in the INFO department I've been very intrigued by the programming databases, and I think that both assignments were looking at manipulations of data in new ways that I had not experienced before. I think that in the future it will be a great boon for architects and engineers to be able to do basic coding and programming as buildings become more intelligent and more reliant on databases to hold information.

Overall, I wish that this class had happened earlier in my Drexel career, if I had the opportunity to take this class before my final Co-Op, I think I could have made more informed decisions about where I was interested in taking my focus in my senior year. I think in general, Drexel should engage more classes tailored for the Digital Building concentration because it has incredible, relevant potential, but all too often it gets shuffled between the construction management department and the Informatics department, without enough dedicated AE classes designed to further the curriculum.

Andrew,

I agree that the industry is going to be rapidly changing during our careers, and the best thing we can do to prepare for this is to be adaptable to the new technologies we encounter. What continues to be important is that we push for change in the AEC world so that it continues to evolve as other tech industries flourish and speed ahead, it is important that we keep up.

Hi Manon,

I think your insights on this class structure were spot on! As a senior, I wish that I could have had a class like this earlier in my Drexel career so I could have been more aware of the different Co-Ops I could pursue as someone with a digital building concentration. I think that the overall structure of this class did a great job introducing us to many different facets of what the AECO industry will look like in our careers, and the technologies that we will be exposed to.

Jake,

I agree that the database section of this course felt more abstractly related to intelligent buildings than perhaps the other sections did. I think that if there had been more time in the course, or maybe even if the database project was altered slightly, we'd be able to get more of a grasp of HOW databases are used in order to design or operate an intelligent building, and maybe focus less on what databases can do.