This certification shows I'm not just familiar with SolidWorks, but I understand how to develop and update complex assemblies quickly in a real-world framework. Achieving it while involved in detail detail-oriented design project where speed, accuracy, and clean modeling were paramount. Holding the CSWP certification allows me to have confidence to take on mechanical design projects, whether it be optimizing a part for 3D printing or troubleshooting the assembly of a tight-tolerance assembly.

This isn't some checkbox; I got this certification because I was already knee deep in complicated models that needed clean designs and fast iterations. I learned how to project my thinking in SolidWorks: how to create assemblies that can withstand changes, how to reason out those weird interferences, and how to hit tolerances without overbuilding. This certification demonstrates the design mentality I use to analyze each project. It is a mentality that is pragmatic, efficient, and employs real-world solutions. It also puts me one test closer to potentially attempting my CSWE!

I took this course so that I could go beyond having a basic knowledge of Excel. I was able to be deterministic within my practice with the addition of data cleaning skills, knowledge of pivot tables, and the ability to automate basic stuff to make analyses more efficient. It allows me to deal with real datasets in class for design reviews and senior projects without having to get lost in the chaos. For any project in which Excel is a key element I feel this will give me an edge.

This course provided a good basis for being able to "read between the lines" with raw data to see what patterns, outliers, and actual relationships mean. It used Python and worked with real datasets while preparing data for ML models, so it was learning how to organize and clean data, visualize it, and think about the right questions to ask of it. While I am primarily focused on the aerospace field, not pertaining to AI, this experience will allow me to think more critically about the data we collect from testing and engineering metrics, and to turn numbers into knowledge.