Bryan Gregory Hart | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Structural Option| Edenwald New Tower | Towson, MD |
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This is a student-generated Capstone Project e-Portfolio (CPEP) produced in conjunction with the AE Senior Thesis e-Studio. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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REFLECTIONS ON AE SENIOR THESIS EXPERIENCE
AE 481W/482 Course Reflection: The entire thesis experience provided by the architectural engineering department was both intensive and extremely valuable. Aside from the significant amount of work required, this project was also unique from previous academic projects due to several factors. It seemed that students were expected to enter the program not with a comprehensive understanding of all topics involved for their projects, but rather they were expected to have the skills, work habits and fundamental principles with which they could then research, learn and educate themselves. This is significant, because a typical academic project involves implemenation of skills, knowledge and information directly learned through coursework. This thesis project was much more open ended, allowing students to pull from as great or as small a base of resources as they saw fit. It was not simply a test of material covered or knowledge retained -- it was a test of our ability to learn new concepts and take what we have learned to higher, more specific and more technical levels of implementation. At the very least, it provides AE graduates with an intensive academic experience which will undoubtedly improve their readiness to join the professional field. CPEP and Discussion Board Reflection: The discussion board was an invaluable tool during the last year. As time progressed, and our projects became increasingly more technical, specific and independent, it became more and more taxing and difficult for the faculty to guide each student along the best path. Having a diverse group of professionals willing and eager to answer our questions was an incredible asset. Furthermore, I must say how pleasantly surprised I was to find the positive and encouraging attitudes of the professionals who participated as our mentors. It would be easy to assume that engineers with busy schedules would find our constant questions a nuisance, however simply did not appear to be true. Beyond simply having our issues resolved, I think most of the students benefitted from having such an interest taken in our success from those who we will soon be working alongside.
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Senior Thesis | The Pennsylvania State University | Architectural Engineering | AE Lab |
Contact Bryan Hart | This Page was last updated on May 8, 2007 , by Bryan Hart and is hosted by the AE Department ©2005 |