University of Alabama CE401 Wrap-up

On Wednesday, I made the trek to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to work for the last time with the Senior Design class (CE401) in the University of Alabama’s Civil Engineering program. The students have been working diligently, and have come up with some pretty good designs for their project, a connector road and utilities for a school site. I also met with the program’s survey instructor, who is wanting to use Civil 3D for his class as well. We went over some of the basics of the program before lunch, and I think he has some great plans for integrating the program throughout the class. The entire department is trying to decide on the best plan of action for integrating Civil 3D throughout the entire program, and wanted to pick my brain on a few things. I could see that the project would require some assistance, so I had contacted Sanjay Asnani at Autodesk for his assistance. He’s a really cool guy, and has a cool role with Autodesk – from his website:

In my position at Autodesk, I have an interesting role to drive awareness of Civil 3D in post-secondary education market. I get to visit cool campuses throughout North America, and spend time with Deans/faculty members to understand their issues and challenges.

He should be visiting with the school in a few weeks, and will definitely help the University progress to the next level with their implementation.

Follow the link if you want to take a step back to college life (I did have fun on Wednesday…)

I opened up the presentation in the classroom by scolding the class a bit – I have received very few support requests by email (MUCH less than last semester.)  I told them that I was there to help, so use me. I was immediately humbled when they said that they didn’t need to – they had gone out to the local Barnes and Noble and purchased our book and found the answers there. What can a guy say to that? They did report that the clerk was unimpressed after learning that they knew one of the authors – so unimpressed that they were denied a discount on the book 😉

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At least the students have priorities….

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A student tries to figure out why the program is running slowly.

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Students write important notes on the whiteboard as they design in the lab…

All in all, I had a lot of fun, and got to work with a great group of faculty members and students. These students are going out into the world with a lot of good knowledge, and exposure to the tools that they will be using in their careers – you can’t ask for anything more.

One comment

  1. It great to see your involvement with Civil 3D lectures at the college and university levels. It will greatly help firms with adoption and provide students with an edge in the workplace at the same time. Don’t forget to encourage them to participate in the Autodesk Student Design Challenge. More information can be found at http://students8.autodesk.com/?nd=challenge_civ.