Sem-end, Part 3: CE 180, 190 and 199

In our last semester, we were enrolled in the precursor of what are now two subjects, CE 190 and CE 199, comprising the undergraduate research program. CE 180 or Seminar was supposed to be what the title states, a seminar course. In the past, the course that was also previously CE 80 involved an instructor-in-charge who served as organizer or facilitator of special lectures by invited speakers. The latter usually came from industry including contractors and structural engineers who spoke about various topics like construction techniques and technology or designing structures to withstand earthquakes. After each lecture, the students would have to prepare a report on the topic presented and discussed in the seminar.

In some incarnations of CE 180, the faculty-in-charge may opt to ask students to work on a project. That was the case when we took CE 180. We were asked to propose a project that we could work on for the duration of the semester and then present it towards the end in what was practically the equivalent of a one-shot examination, where our instructor also gave us our grades right then and there after presentation of our accomplishments.

I remember that many of us opted to develop computer programs. After all, many of us could think of many types of programs that were supposed to facilitate computations for our civil engineering classes and many of us were dabbling into software development. Of course, each of us had different skill levels in programming. There were those who were able to come up with sophisticated and complex programs. These included a classmate who was engrossed with creating graphics but had trouble in coming up with substantial content for his program. Another classmate, and a good friend, was really good with computers and to this day is perhaps among the best in our class when it came to computers. He's still good with programming and nowadays also works on transport modelling, GIS and database systems. In my case, I would like to believe that I was a decent enough programmer and worked on a project that developed a tool for soil mechanics calculations. I did get a good grade for the program I developed so I think I did pretty well back then.

CE 180 was one-unit subject. It was retained after the initial round of revisions to the Civil Engineering curriculum of UP Diliman. One reason was to have a seminar course readily available in case the need arises for such a course to be offered, even if the course would just serve as an excess unit. CE 180 was eventually renamed CE 190 but was retained as a one-unit course. It was redefined to become a subject where undergraduate students developed research topics and proposed these at the end of the semester. CE 190 became the prerequisite of a new subject, CE 199, that was to be the course for the implementation of the research proposed in CE 190. The former is a 3 unit subject, with the increased number of units commensurate with the work expected of students for this terminal subject.