New to Cad and just wondering if to teach myself introduction and go for a lvl2 C&G?

Hi

New to Cad, I have seen it used in 2d a few years back but never used it myself, I am very good with computers and a fast learner. Its something I've been interested in for a while but have been stuck in a rut working as an MOT tester for the last 5 years! So I'm looking to have a go at a fresh career and fed up of being freezing cold in a damp garage all day!

... So Ive been looking into the City and Guilds Qualifications and my aim so far is to try and get my Level 2 and hopefully get a start with a company somewhere! but if not then go on to my level 3 by myself anyway as I have no problem in paying for myself to do them at my local college.

MY College starts a level 2 in a month or two, Ive got some time off at the minute and am wondering if I should do a Beginners Course which I've heard are VERY basic and is stuff I can teach myself. So my dilemma is whether to teach myself and go for a level 2 C&G or whether too do an Introduction for 14 weeks first which if I do I probably won't be able to get on to a level 2 course until either late in the year or early next year!

Thanks for any help/suggestions and sorry if this is in the wrong section on the forum!

Cheers,

Martin

Martin,

I have done both Level 1 & 2 C & G some years ago. I was a complete newbie and though a little confused at first, found level one very easy. I reckon with a decent book (For dummies is a good place to start) and some help on this forum you can teach yourself for a while and may be able to do away with level one. This is only my opinion of course and a lot may have changed in the course from when I did it.

I'll be happy to give any pointers should you need them. There are people on here FAR more knowledgeable than me but I'm at a decent 2D and 3D level and think I'm pretty decent in explaining things in understandable terms

Best of luck mate

Iain

good feedback and very helpful guys.

Some great help/advice there, thanks!

Just wondering If I was able to complete level 2 City and Guilds, Would that be enough to get a job with to start?

Or would It be advised to get Level 3 under my belt also before trying to make the career change, Im not too worried about a salary drop at this point.

Ive downloaded a couple of Ebooks (For Dummies is one) and am getting straight on with having a go tonight

Cheers

Martin, how did you get on last night?

As far as what employers are looking for I can't really answer that other than it would be helpful having a background in engineering/construction/something else other than just being able to draw. I know this from experience in going to a job interview....it was advertised as a draughting job, I sent in my CV (not background in engineering) got an interview only to be told in the interview that I would require a background in mechanical and electrical engineering preferably in air conditioning. I don't think they had read my CV. Bit embarrassing to be honest!!

Don't be put off though, this is just one bad experience

What industry are you looking into?

Iain

Yes I understand what your saying, to be honest I don't think I'm fussed as to what area I would want to go into, I have been working with cars since I was about 20 so maybe even something to do with cars as I know places like lotus look for people with cad skills.

I have so far been through chapter 1 of the autocad for dummies 2011. I have had no problems so far with it and am going to get into doing some drawing tonight. The only thing I struggled with was the book was demonstrating cad 2011 for windows and im using cad 2013 on a MacBook which seems to look very different, everything is in a different place that's all. It hasn't caused any problems so far though as the command section is all the same.

Thanks for your replies,

Martin.

As long as you're using Autocad the commands will be the same. I use 2007 so 2013 would be a massive culture shock for me in terms of how it looks. You can (I think) set it to '. I'm sure someone here can let you know. Best of luckclassic view'

Not sure what happened there...was meant to read 'classic view' then best of luck. Oops!

Not sure you can do so for ACad-Mac. The Classic View is simply replacing the new Ribbon interface (as introduced in 2009) back to the old menu and toolbar layout.

If your book shows 2011, I'm sure they're showing the Ribbon interface there as well. Mac doesn't have such a thing, so I'm guessing that's where the difference comes in. ACad's only recently (2011 was the first) started back towards the bitten fruit, so I don't think you'll find too many books regarding ACad for Mac (never mind the absolute newest version).

Actually I'd advise learning the commands themselves, instead of trying to remember which button to click. I've found that 99% of my work is done with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse - it's just simply exponentially faster than trying to get at the correct pull-down menu / ribbon-tab, especially when you also start learning and making your own keyboard shortcuts.