Education and Getting Schooled part II

The title of this post got me thinking about how the education of cad and cad related products have changed.

When I first started out using AutoCAD (10 years ago on R-12 Dos) I was hired by a freelance drafting firm who took the chance on a young kid with construction experience, board drafting skills and a thirst for learning. The first day I learned 4 commands from my boss at the time they were; Change, Erase, Line and Text. With these 4 commands and a half-hour training session I was all set to start working. ;)

There was no one else in the area who knew all the ins/outs I soon realized as I studied AutoCAD and wanted to know the philosophy behind it and how to use it effectively. Ahhhhh the good old days, when learning a new command and showing it to people from different companies got cheers from everyone!!!!

Fast forward to the present time and now I have the opportunity to not only use AutoCAD, ADT and VIZ/MAX but also to teach them, customize them and more. As many of you know I teach a few evenings a week at my local college. The students I have surprise me each week with how much knowledge they soak up and also their level of questions and how they wish to apply their new found knowledge to their respective fields. I have also seen the learning level become easier for users with the release of the 2004 suite of products.

When you combine the many avenues of support available to users now, from Help File and Tutorials that ship with the product, newsgroups, books, websites for free and paid learning and of course training courses on CD/DVD it seems even easier to pick-up and hone your knowledge and skills. I cannot wait to see and be a part of what happens over the next 5-10 years for development of this software that we have come to know and love.