Reflection 

ABET Outcome Survey

Place a check in the box that best describes the correlation between the ABET Outcomes and what you learned in AE 481W/482: Senior Thesis.

Highlight the box and type a capital X.

AE 481W/482 Course Reflection

As seen throughout this web-page, my Senior Thesis dealt with the Capital One Lecture Hall Addition. Coming into the Fall semester, I felt uneasy thinking that my summer project would not have been large enough to be an acceptable building. Once given final approval by the Architectural Engineering department, due to the structures complexity, my initial concerns were no longer.

Having a summer internship with DAVIS Construction Corporation came to be an invaluable experience both inside the classroom and out. Both my Senior Project Manager and Assistant Project Manager were Penn State Architectural Engineering graduates and knew what was to be expected throughout the year once my internship was over. An open path of communication through emails and site visits from time to time were the sources of much of my information utilized for Thesis.

During the Fall semester, we were expected to complete a number of assignments to familiarize ourselves and our advisors of the project background. With help from my co-workers, completing assignments during the Fall semester did not come to be much of a problem. In countless instances a quick e-mail or phone call was all that it took to obtain the proper information within a few days time. By the end of the first half of the course, I put together a proposal which was to guide me through the second semester course work.

Coming back from Christmas Vacation, I was informed that my proposal was to be revised. By the time it was handed back in after a number of meetings with my advisors, two weeks of the semester had already passed. Formal approval of the revised proposal never came about. Progress was made in a slow manner because I did not want to get too far into things and find out that my proposal was still not adequate. By the time our final papers were due, I came to find out that my three analyses in addition to my core Construction Management research was more than what many of my peers were requested to pursue. In retrospect, doing an additional analyses was quite educational, but also very stressfull. This made me curious to know if all of our advisors were on the same page and had a clear cut idea of what was expected of their students.

Overall, my Senior Thesis experience was a good one. It gave me invaluable communcation practice with industry members and forced me to set my own personal deadlines. Having to solve real-life problems with the help of peers and superiors will undoubtedly help me through my future career in the field of construction.

CPEP & Discussion Board Reflection

The Capstone Project e-Portfolio (CPEP) utilized within our Senior Thesis curriculum has allowed myself and my peers to present our course research online. Although we were given the freedom to customize our site design, an initial template was provided. Having little to no experience in developing websites, this template page was priceless. In my opinion, I could have use additional pointers on how to better maintain a more aesthetically appealing site. Although it was not overly difficult to learn Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and manage our site, I feel that I was unable to fully express the passion and findings of my research because of my lack of website experience.

A discussion board was also provided to us by our facauly. This gave us a medium in which to communicate with industry professionals for real-life solutions to our academic dilemnas. Personally, I was able to utilize this discussion board in order to disperse my Construction Management research and interest in Partnering for Value Engineering. With the feedback of a number of mentors, I was given the ability to put together a comprehensive analysis of industry opinions on the benefits and downfalls of value engineering as a process within the construction industry.