Reflection

    The AE Senior Thesis project provides students with the opportunity to evaluate and design a building, applying the knowledge they have learned through their coursework.  Looking at the whole building allows the holistic performance of the design to be considered as well as giving the students the realization that decisions made during the design of one system impact the rest of the building as well.  Design is not a linear process and involves circling back to revise previous calculations and to update assumptions as more of the design is finalized.  Additionally, using an actual project provides the intricacies, details, and integration required on a real-world project.  Senior Thesis begins the process for entry level engineers to take their classroom learning and apply it to actual projects.  Classes can only cover so many possible scenarios and students need to learn where to turn to for answers and how to lookup procedures when faced with problems that are more complicated than the “cookie cutter” examples.  Through Senior Thesis I able to begin transforming my classroom learning into real-world design processes as well as improving my judgement for the holistic impact of design changes.