Attending Presentations in Week-10

Dr. Primerano asked me to clarify that we want you to attend three presentations by students in other sections.  You’ll have an excellent opportunity to see the wide variety of projects undertaken by your classmates.

We elected not to require presentations in our sections, substituting the bridge testing in Week-9 in its stead.  However, becoming familiar with presentations as both an observer and a presenter is an important skill for all engineers.

Week-10 Presentations - Why We're Not Making Them

Question:

Why don't we have a presentation time for our project? I don't mind that we don't have to do that extra work, but I'm curious about your reasoning on this decision.

Response:

My belief when putting together this course was that the week-10 presentations didn't make sense for our sections for the following reasons:

• Everybody is doing the same thing in our sections, whereas other sections have more varied projects.  I felt it would become boring to everyone to hear the same issues addressed many times.
• I asked a considerable effort of you in putting together the weekly posts as well as the assignments.  Making the last week a lighter load seemed like a good idea.

I'd be glad to hear from the class if you think adding the presentations another time would be beneficial.

Jim Mitchell