March 15, 2011 - As part of their hands-on instruction, several students in the Drafting Technology program at Albany Tech visited the Logistics Education Center construction site, home of Albany Tech’s newest building, at the end of February.
Several of the students commented that it is one thing to study in the classroom, but a totally different experience to see it “real life” and on-site.
“The classroom study really comes alive on the construction site,” said Chinelo Ochie, drafting instructor for Albany Tech. “The students commented that the building is massive, impressive, and in-tune with modern technology.”
Ochie says that one of her strategies in helping students understand real life design/drafting is by exposure to real life projects. This has been achieved in the past by aligning the curriculum with real life projects like with the design/drafting of several residential buildings (including Habitat homes), several on-campus projects, offcampus site visits, real scale structural and assembly models.
“When the on-campus site visit opportunity presented itself, we took we took advantage of it. We literally turned the new construction into a real life construction lab,” said Ochie.
Several drafting students reviewed plans for the building prior to making the visit.