poll about cad knowledge

huangyhg

poll about cad knowledge
how many people here work at a firm in which they need to know how to use cad themselves.  i have know idea how to draw a straight line in cad, but many engineering companies say you must be proficient in cad in part of their job descriptions.

i work at a very small firm where the engineers do about 75% of their own drafting.  we are all experts at 2d cad, and have a very detailed, almost artful drawing style.  i actually take some pride in putting together my own set of plans from concept to engineering to plot.
here, engineers do all the drafting.  autocad for civil projects, microstation for transportation projects.
we need to know acad and knowing ms helps.  we don't necessarily have to be tech's ourselves in addition to being engineers but we should be useful and able with cad.  
at other firms i've done all my own drafting and had to be as proficient as necessary to draw my own stuff.
am i less marketable having all design experience and absolutely zero cad knowledge?  i would love to know how to do cad, but don't want to invest the time to learn (how to do it efficiently and effectively) when i have so many engineering things to learn and read about.
it's my feeling that in today's world you are less marketable not knowing cad.  if you didn't gain insight from college when pursuing your bs degree (nearly all us universities have a mandatory engineering drawing class) then you should enroll in a local community college (or 2 year technical school)  to pick up a simple three month class.  you'll be surprised at what you can learn to do in that time and will be more marketable to boot.
right now most civil engineers work on cadd since all the alignment and profile functions lent themselves well to cad work.  i see the day coming when engineers will also do the same for structural details.
regards,
qshake
eng-tips forums:real solutions for real problems really quick.
structuraleit, move to california.  i can't speak for general practices of "structural" engineering firms in other states but here structural engineers do mainly engineering and most small to mid size firms have cad department that handle around 95% of cad work.
engineers here typically do not have licensed copy of autocad.  usually they have autocad file viewers with mark-up capability.  it doesn't make business sense to buy the autocad that will be used by engineers only 5% of the time.
if you have zero cad knowledge, it will be good for your career to learn the basics.  you will not be as fast or as good as the guys who are trained to do cad work.  in the days before cad, drafters did the drafting and engineers did engineering.  from time to time, engineers drew details by themselves to sticky-back them on the tracings.  it will be good to have at least that ability today with cad.
personally, i also have zero cad knowledge though i made attempts to learn 15 years ago.  at this stage in my career, i don't need cad knowledge to survive.
don't get too proficient at it though.  we had a case where an eit got so proficient at cad that everyone, including other departments, wanted him to draft for them.  he eventually had to leave the company to pursue his engineering career.
i took cad course at the university with the intent to make me more marketable.  my first job did not require any cad of me.  my second one it helped me get the job.  on the beginning i did quite a bit of cad.  my boss was intending to learn cad himself too.  over time it became clear that one can not be a master of everything and i did maybe 2 hours of cad a year the last six years.  in any case you should know how to access drawings, get dimensions and plot as a bear minimum.  in the beginning of my self employement i did more cad again.  now i used cad sub contractors.
eric mcdonald, pe
mcdonald structural engineering, pllc
i took an "autocad for professionals" class at a local junior college.  it was 8 hours a saturday for 4 weeks.  that pretty much gets you going on the 2-drafting.  it takes a long time to get completely up to speed, though.  i think our autocad supplier also offers similar classes.
a lot of the junior college regular drafting classes are also teaching what a blueprint is, what it means, and then teaching different industries:  construction, electronics, etc.  if you're in engineering already, you should know what the drawings mean and what they look like, and don't need to know the out-of-industry stuff.
i've been using cad for about 20 years.  lots of hand drafting too in the old days.  i don't do all of my own cad work now and am not as familiar with the latest autocad as i was ten years ago.  but i know enough to get things done.  learn to copy, paste, edit.  makes things go fast when you need to go fast.  i can plot and set up sheets when i have to, but it's slower when i do it than when my cad tech does it.