title: Creating an Enum value from Model First design using EF 6.1
body: <p>I simply want to find out <strong>how to create a column in an entity as an Enum type using Model First design.</strong></p>
  
  <p>In the attached image, you can see that I created a simple Console application (on the right pane) and added an EDM model with one entity named Teacher (on the left).</p>
  
  <p>I clicked on the EDM designer and selected "Add new Enum Type" (which you see in the middle pane). The 3 types are Permanent, Contract, and Guest with respective values inside the TeacherType Enum Type of 1,2,3.</p>
  
  <p><strong>How can I convert the TeacherType **property</strong> on the left pane to actually be the <strong>Enum</strong> value TeacherType in the middle pane?**
  <img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/67Kp1.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>Also, if you update your model which in turn will update the DB, will you lose your changes? With Model First, I believe not, but with DataBase First, I believe you will. Is there also a way to do the same thing I'm doing with DataBase First?</p>
  
  <p>Code First is good, but I feel it still has a ways to go because of all the Powershell commands you need to manually do and all the "extra baggage" like defining relationships, FK's, seeding, etc all in the code. This takes up <strong>a lot of time</strong> and I feel can easily be done in a designer faster and with less mistakes.</p>