Should someone like me make a career using autocad?

[overground55]

Please bear with me, this may be long, but I feel its important I give you folks all the facts in order to be able to give me the best bits of wisdom. I am a student currently taking courses at a community college. All my life I have been artistically inclined, and for a year I was at this community college aiming to get a degree in graphic design. For various reasons, I didn’t enjoy graphic design, it didn’t appeal to my understanding of art and what I would want to see myself using art for. Recently my mother mentioned AutoCAD, and recommended I take some courses because of the visual way you are dealing with information. I just started taking courses, a drafting class, and an AutoCAD 101 class, just getting our feet wet in the program… I have no idea what I’m getting into. I talked to the teacher about where specifically to take AutoCAD, whether it’s a job in and of itself, or whether its just a tool to be used with another specialized field, like firefighting or engineering or something. She really was very frustratingly vague, despite my efforts to get a larger understanding of what AutoCAD is all about in todays economy, and even more importantly, what area of AutoCAD someone who is artistically inclined should go. Currently she has me set on a course towards mechanical drafting, but I am coming to the community here to ask those with experience and wisdom whether this is a good direction? Is there jobs doing mechanical drafting? Is that an area that would be fun? What would a day in a job like that look like? Am I going about this the right way by reaching out to the online community for help?

What exactly am I getting myself into here?

Any wisdom from the community would be incredibly valuable to me. Thank you to those who took the time to read my story.

 

I've posted some of my art in the attachment.

[Dadgad]

Welcome to CADTutor.

You have posted your question in the right place.

 

My guess is that you may find mechanical cad work a bit boring, based on nothing more than the attached image.

But I suspect that you are already beginning to see what an incredible tool CAD (in all its many guises) is;

Learning to do mechanical should be a good stepping stone to all sorts of much more interesting and creative endeavors.

 

Personally I love doing mechanical, but it is not for everybody.

Take a look at some of the work on the SHOWCASE forum on this site to give you some idea of the capabilities of the software, and different interesting ways to

utilize it. Be patient, as there are lots of members on this forum who are very well schooled, and well equipped to better answer your question.

 

You might be better suited to animechanical work. Hold on tight, and enjoy the ride.

[Tiger]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

I second Dadgads guess, you'll probably find mech cad boring, if you are artistically inclined. After all, I love working with AutoCAD because I am not the slightest bit artistic (I have shown you my stick figures? I am sure I must have at some point) and AutoCAD suits me like a glove.

 

As to what you could work with if you have a knowledge of AutoCAD - that is hard. LIke saying what can you work with if you know math. Or know how to use a screwdriver. AutoCAD is very omni.. omni... just omni in general. Good at loads, not specialized at anything. So I think you would find some use if you stick with it and learn AutoCAD, but based only on what I read and see in your post, I doubt that AutoCAD will get you more than perhaps your first job - that may or may not be enough though.

 

Take a look at 3D-CAD software, while they are also mostly used for boring mech work (hey! who are you calling boring .. oh right. ) they could offer you perhaps a better stepping stone into what you would love to do (even if you don't know it right now) than AutoCAD 2D.

 

It could also be that I am talking out of my bleep since it is monday morning and the coffee machine is broken.

 

Anyway, good luck in the future

[ReMark]

Have you considered entering the filed of gaming?

 

How about set design for Broadway plays and musicals?

 

Architecture?

[JD Mather]

I think you should research the field of Industrial Design (ID) and perhaps one of the next-generation tools like Autodesk Alias.

(Find the url to their forum to talk to ID people about your career goals.)

If you stick with Mechanical Design you should check out Autodesk Inventor.

For Architectural Design check out Autodesk Revit.

 

Students can get these programs for free from http://www.autodesk.com/edcommunity

[overground55]

Thanks for the reply Dadgad, you mention animechanical work at the bottom, is that a field, or was that a typo? Haha, just curious.

 

Thanks for the reply Tiger, is there a 3D cad program you recommend? For someone who wants to passionately pursue this, is a community college the right way to go about this? Is online school a better way, or just teaching myself? Finding a tutor? What will prepare me best for getting a job if I start using a 3D CAD program?

[Tiger]

Both Autodesk Inventor that JD mentions and Solid Works are 3D CAD programs that you possible could find more appealing than plain autocad.

 

I am a firm believer that education and courses is most often the right way to go, especially if you do not have a job on the side that can sustain you while you learn the program on your own. But bare (beer? Bear? I am never sure) in mind that I live in Sweden where education is very easy to come by and to get funding for, that might not be the case for you.

 

How old are you? Not that it matters in learning a new program, but if you still are young I hesitate to say that there is a wrong way to go. Even you start a class and feel that that is perhaps not exactly the right way to go, then at least you know that, and you will hopefully learn a skill anyway that may come in handy further down the road. And you can find another class that is closer to what you want and you can work your way up to getting enough skills so that an employer wants you. Again, the school system here is very different from the little I know of the US (I assume you are in the US) so this might be terrible advice for you.

 

It is really hard to recommend you to do something when we know so little about you. It is hard to recommend career paths even if we did know you. Perhaps a career counsler is something to try out?

 

I can say that I have a bachelor in building science, but the only thing that did was give me my first job - which is only by the tip of the fingers related to building science. Now, six years later - I still don't know if this is the right place for me, and I am not sure I will ever be sure, no matter where I end up. While education is important (it did get me my first job, as I think is the case with many), what comes after the education is even more important.

[overground55]

I am 23 currently, what do you make of that? Too late to start playing around with 3DS Max, Rivet, etc… seriously? Also, I live here in Colorado, I can always shoot for scholarships I suppose. I can tell you that I was never much good at logical reasoning, haha. I had struggled with math in highschool, and for some insane reason I picked up computer programming over last summer, trying my hand at Java programming. I literally could not wrap my mind around it, my mind just couldnt figure it out.

[Tiger]

Nah, 23 is not old - plenty of time to figure out what you want to do

[Dadgad]

I was just playing with language, given the rather animatronic look of your attached image.

I started learning cad 4 years ago when I was 58 years old, and absolutely love it.

There is no end in sight to what you can learn and create using it, if you are curious,

driven or god forbid, obsessive, like so many of us on the forum.

If accuracy and precision float your boat, nothing else, certainly not

in the REAL world even comes close.

Perhaps you are destined to be a cad animator?

Time will tell, keep your eyes and options open until you find the niche that

really interests you.

[overground55]

haha, thanks for the reply dadgad. I should have caught onto that animatronic business. Anyways, I certainly will stick around.