Starting a job with AutoCAD - All advice welcome

[cas_master]

Hello everyone, I signed up to this forum because I am stuck in a depressing job and I would really like to base my career around AutoCAD. I found out about this website when I decided to practise using AutoCAD in my spare time. I am making my way through the tutorial provided by this site and I am really enjoying working with AutoCAD.

 

I love to design and would be thrilled to have a job where I could work with AutoCAD however the only jobs I come across required experienced designers. I cannot seem to be able to break my way into the designing world due to my lack of qualifications in this program. I was wondering if anyone might be able to provide some advice on this matter. I am 23, I live in Leicester in the UK and have a years experience working in IT and have good GCSE’s, A levels.

 

I would appreciate any help at all.

 

Cheers,

 

Chris

[Geoffers]

CAS

learning basic AutoCAD to be able to turn out productive, useful drawings is not difficult but after that there is a mountain - if you want to climb it.

 

What is your background; construction, engineering, electrical... It has been said in this forum before; just being able to use AutoCAD is not enough - you must know what you are drawing... then you can go for it.

[cas_master]

Thanks for getting back to me. A colleague at my current work place designs the layout for our stores. I work for Dunelm Mill, a soft furnishings retailer and we have new stores that are developed yearly. This colleague had a very lucky opportunity to move from my IT department to this development team with no experience of AutoCAD. He's getting along with it really well now though, I've seen his work and its impressive.

His work is still simple, 2D layouts is a nice place to start in AutoCAD. Personally I don't have experience in architecture or engineering and I have focused strongly on the point you made of knowing what you are drawing. In that sense I would like to try some form of product design and I enjoyed such projects when conducting my GCSE in graphic design.

Still I will keep up my practice with AutoCAD its just finding a job based in design for a new comer that I am struggling with.

[Strix]

if you have some basic skills, the best place to start looking for a job is probably the jobcentre website - google for worktrain

 

If you're currently in IT, I'd be surprised if you didn't have to take a step down to make this switch though

 

If you're determined that this is what you want to do, go for it, and good luck

[paul1966]

good to see another Leicester member. i am in a similar situation to you. getting a job with no cad experience is going to be difficult, you do have IT skills that might be of benefit to some companies. as we are entering a recession obviously companies are reluctant to hire, what i am doing is staying put until there are signs of recovery, but i am getting cad qualifications, i am currently going city and guilds 2d advanced and when i feel competant enough i have been offered small jobs doing HVAC layouts to get experience. are you sure you want to give up on IT, thats another area i have been trying to get into and is extremely difficult to get an IT job.

[Effigy]

May also be worth doing a city and guilds course in 2d and perhaps even later 3d CAD. They also run in the evenings and last about a year, quite inexpensive and worth doing since it is usually just 1 evening a work and its a recoqnized qualification by employers.

[cas_master]

Thanks thats great advise. I think I will look into the City and Guilds 2D course for next year. I would really enjoy working with AutoCAD Paul, I.T. is a good career IT but I'm not really enjoying it and I can't really be creative either. I wanted to try and plan a move into the field of design before I get stuck in a career I'm unhappy with.

[paul1966]

what i would do is self study from a good book, i use George omura mastering autocad 2008 and then next year enrol on the city and guilds 2d advanced course. i am attending Loughborough college, cost about £180. even though the course is advanced its not that difficult.

[cas_master]

Cheers, Loughborough isn't far from when I work. I hope the course is flexible, I currently do shift work. I'm going to hit the books, I'm enjoying the tutorial hoasted on this site.

[Doove]

Hi

 

I've basically the same qualifications as you and have done what you are proposing to do; made a career as a CAD technician / draftsman.

 

The City & Guilds courses are a good place to start but they teach using Autocad rather than the drafting techniques you seem concerned with.

 

In the good old days of paper, pen, ink & cloth (... hey old folks remember the blue dye copiers... ah, I love the smell of horse urine in the morning...), a draftsman would have a HNC / HND in a relevant discipline.

 

I'm studying with the OU to try and get more engineering qualifications; if you have a local college then research doing your HNC / HND in either an engineering discipline or anything architectural if you can. There are Architectural Technicians and Technologists and they have associations you could contact for advice, mind you I tried and noone was really informative, I'm still at a bit of a loss about how you go about becoming an Architectural Technician or Technologist if you haven't got the time or money to spend 3 years at Uni! The Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists (CIAT) require a portfolio submission but how do you go about getting that until you are working as an Architectural Technologist?

 

In all fairness, you could do the C&G autocad courses at the same time as a HNC / HND as they don't require homework; you just do your 4 hours once a week evening thing.

 

If you want to chat about it email me, I've been looking at the career paths for CAD technicians for a long time.

 

Cheers & good luck.

[BIGMIKE09281946]

Say Mate, How is it you are able to use AutoCAD to home study? The best I can do is to keep re-formating my hard drives and re-installing AutoCAD 2006.