[Madison]

I'd echo a lot of Todd's comments. My experience has been that certifications such as these are not a good indicator of how well someone will do as a modeler or drafter.

Unfortunately, these classes don't really teach enough about developing consistent, repeatable processes for documenting mechanical designs and that is often what can separate someone with acceptable design/draft capabilities from someone who is an expert. Not only is it important that you produce finished models and drawings that are accurate and clear, but that those same models and drawings may be easily updated or changed later. I can't count the number of hours I've lost trying to figure out how or why a part or assembly was modeled a particular way while trying to make a change; designing things quickly for an FRC robot is a completely different animal than working with a real product with real requirements for documentation and support.