Exit Interview Questions

(1) What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your question and why?

My essential question is how can a machine programmer best produce quality parts in the aerospace industry? The best answer for this would be to have a working knowledge of CAD/CAM systems because through my interviews, personal experience and research, I found that not only is it much easier to learn the program through actually using it in a real situation, but people who have experience with the program are more desirable because they have the knowledge on how to properly adjust programming for parts due to constantly changing factors rather than someone just out of a class with no skill in that area.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

 From the very beginning I knew that my first answer would be my best answer, this was how all the programmers and my mentor learned the program, and all of them never had trouble finding a job even when their company would go down and there were people freshly out of classes to compete with. Senior Project was mostly there for me  to find solid ways to back it up. 

(3) What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?

Problems I faced were finding out ways to actually teach the information to other people, I've grown up with basic knowledge of machine programming, but it was hard to find a way to sort out what was basic important knowledge over what was basic and not really needed knowledge. Also finding out possible activities was also challenging because i felt so limited in what i could do. These problems were solved by asking for help from my peers and brainstorming with them

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

The two most important sources for answering my EQ would be my fourth interview and and article about how successful a certain school's programming curriculum was. The latter hadn't really applied till i had connected the dots after my first interview where i read it again to discover the reason why these students never had trouble finding a job was because part of their learning was participating in an actual machine shop . My forth interview, basically provided proof from an expert for my best answer.

(5) What is your product and why?

My product from senior project was for me to develop the appropriate use of the CAD program to create objects that could conceivably be manufactured. I previously did not have this knowledge, I could create images, but I couldn't actually program. Through senior project, i was able to create an actual, functional program.