Quote:
Originally posted by SuperDanman
I managed to get an Educational release of SolidWorks, as well as lectures on how to use it from my brother's intro to cad class at college. I don't really have any expierience in cad, so for those of you that do: have any of you used SolidWorks? Should I continue teaching myself SolidWorks, or start teaching myself AutoCAD/Inventor from the kit last year?
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To be honest I'm not sure which system has the most commercial value at the moment. I do know that the major CAD programs are going parametric and that CATIA5's look and feel is very similar to Inventor.
I've been doing CAD for over twenty years now, but it is not a major part of my job (a couple of months every year or so) so I don't have a lot of time on any one system. To be considered "experienced" you need at least 2000 hrs on ONE system. So 20+ years running CADAM, NCAD, Unigraphics 9 & 10 & 14 & 15, CATIA 4 & 5, AutoCad R14, and now finally Inventor 5 with 200-500 hours each (depending on how long they stayed around) doesn't count. At least not in most places where when they want an experienced CAD operator they want to just hand him a sketch and have him be productive, before he finds out where the restroom is.
To sum it up, if your team is using one program, I'd learn that. If you are on your own, I'd check the want ads or with a recruiter for what is marketable in your area. Then get really good with that program, which will take you about 1000 hours. Less if you are already good with another system, or have made a profession of learning new systems, like I have.
The really confusing part is when you are using three different systems at once for different projects. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out that the reason the program is acting so funny is that the mouse click does something different in this program than the one your brain thinks it's using.