What Do I tell High School CAD Students

Edwards Finance > CAD Drafting

Q. I am a new High School CAD-Drafting teacher. I am in my second year of teaching AutoCAD R-14 in the Windows NT environment. I am interested in getting feedback from professionals in the field as to what to tell my students. I need help answering the following questions: 1. Are there summer jobs, part-time jobs or internships for High School age students who are interested in and talented at CAD work. 2. What are the most important BASIC SKILLS needed to work in the CAD Drawing field at an entry level? 3. Are there professionals out in "Internet Land" that would be willing to be an e-mail contact as a mentor with High School CAD students?

A. Probably the most important thing I can recommend is that your students learn that CAD drafting is not all that different from hand drafting in that one must understand line weights and good drawing techniques. Too many new draftspersons who have only learned CAD produce drawings that don't read well because of a lack of understanding of depth which line weights can give you. Its real tough for high-schoolers to get jobs - there are many college students who want the same jobs - especially in an architectural firm. The understanding of what the lines being drawn on the computer screen represent. I have known CAD drafters with whom the best way to let them know what they were drawing was to have a lot of product samples laying around so that I could show them that 2 lines spaced 8" apart was a wall made of concrete block. Even after 14 years of CAD drafting I still primarily use the basic line, arc, trim, extend, move, copy and rotate commands. >3. Are there professionals out in "Internet Land" that would be willing >to be an e-mail contact as a mentor with High School CAD students? If you have a talented student who wants to pursue a career in architecture, I would be glad to mentor via e-mail. I do so with others, but if they lose interest in being an architect then I'm afraid I wouldn't be as good. I'm sure there are other fields - engineering, etc., through which mentors could be found for those students wishing to pursue careers in something other than architecture.

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