Should AutoCAD be a required college course?
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solomonb
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A solution to this problem is to identify it to the advisory board to the Dean of College of Engineering. Most engineering colleges have business/engineernig advisory boards whose role, among others, is to tell the Dean and faculty what they need in the field and how the school is either preparing/not preparing the candidates for the work in the field. A good Dean will listen carefully to his/her employer stakeholders, the last thing he/she wants is to NOT PREPARE his/her degree candidates with tools that are needed in the field.
Go to any engineering school that ABET accredited; there is a Dean's advisory council. Call one of the members and tell he/she how you feel about this. They will listen. I suspect that they will bring it up at the next advisory board meeting. The challenge then becomes where is the funding going to come from for the college to get the software and what courses are going to be deleted so that this can be added. Of course, this may be able to be introduced into some existing class-- each school is different.
When I was a Dean, I listened very, very carefully to what the business advisory board told me. WE made "field adjustments" to the curriculum when necessary to be sure our candidates were prepared for the world of work.
Go to any engineering school that ABET accredited; there is a Dean's advisory council. Call one of the members and tell he/she how you feel about this. They will listen. I suspect that they will bring it up at the next advisory board meeting. The challenge then becomes where is the funding going to come from for the college to get the software and what courses are going to be deleted so that this can be added. Of course, this may be able to be introduced into some existing class-- each school is different.
When I was a Dean, I listened very, very carefully to what the business advisory board told me. WE made "field adjustments" to the curriculum when necessary to be sure our candidates were prepared for the world of work.
hjg7715
Well-known member
Had you asked this question 7 years ago, I probably would have said that all CE students should not only be required to take a basic AutoCAD course, but advanced AutoCAD courses as well to learn how to use the more advanced features of AutoCAD Civil 3D.
However, since that time, my opinion has evolved. I think it's a lot more important that CE students learn the engineering principles that AutoCAD has automated and let industry train him/her on how to use the features of AutoCAD if their employer has elected to purchase AutoCAD licensing. There are a lot of different software suites and applications that can accomplish the same things. And it would be impractical for engineering schools to invest heavily with resources and curriculum into a single software suite.
Prior to completing my college degree, I learned how to use many of the advanced features of AutoCAD such as pipe creation tools, grading, etc...and knew how to use AutoCAD extensively. But I can't say I had mastered the principles behind the civil tools in AutoCAd and on occasions found it challenging when migrating from AutoCAD to other software suites or even with manual engineering calculations. However, after developing solid foundations in the principles behind the civil tools in AutoCAD, I found it rather easy to learn how to use most of the features in AutoCAD, as well as other software suites. The principles don't change, but the inputs or controls that software use does, but IMO that's relatively easy to learn if you understand the inputs.
However, since that time, my opinion has evolved. I think it's a lot more important that CE students learn the engineering principles that AutoCAD has automated and let industry train him/her on how to use the features of AutoCAD if their employer has elected to purchase AutoCAD licensing. There are a lot of different software suites and applications that can accomplish the same things. And it would be impractical for engineering schools to invest heavily with resources and curriculum into a single software suite.
Prior to completing my college degree, I learned how to use many of the advanced features of AutoCAD such as pipe creation tools, grading, etc...and knew how to use AutoCAD extensively. But I can't say I had mastered the principles behind the civil tools in AutoCAd and on occasions found it challenging when migrating from AutoCAD to other software suites or even with manual engineering calculations. However, after developing solid foundations in the principles behind the civil tools in AutoCAD, I found it rather easy to learn how to use most of the features in AutoCAD, as well as other software suites. The principles don't change, but the inputs or controls that software use does, but IMO that's relatively easy to learn if you understand the inputs.
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