<p>My son, who has just finished his junior yera, has been taking AutoCAD since 9th grade.</p>
<p>Do colleges treat this as a real core course if he applies for engineering or a BS/engineering technology program, or is this viewed as more of something that shop class kids take, and not as college prep material?</p>
<p>Let’s look at it this way. If the course shows up on the transcript, that’s a proof. If that’s just a hobby thing, more or less you should have a letter of recommendation, or maybe send them a portiflo. </p>
<p>Honestly, knowing AutoCAD will not boost his chance to be admitted, because some applicants are not as fortunate as your son who had the chance to take computer science / engineering / advance STEM courses. But if he has competed or even won an award, or did something physically with people using AutoCAD (i.e. used AutoCAD for the school’s robotics team), that’s a plus plus plus.</p>
<p>He should be able to explain how AutoCAD has changed the way he think about science and engineering? </p>
<p>In general, knowing a programming language is not impressive, so knowing AutoCAD is not that special at all. The product is more important. That’s how people evaluate his ability. It is like getting 800 on SAT Math. It doesn’t mean that person is genius or good at Math.</p>
<p>I encourage him to look for ways to apply his AutoCAD skill. You can make cool scientific images by drawing it on AutoCAD! If there’s a robotics team, join it. Or he could teach his fellow peers . </p>
<p>Is this a school course or outside of school?</p>
<p>Only the civil engineers at my university have to take a class on AutoCAD. But it is also offered sometimes as a Technical elective for Mechanical engineers.</p>
<p>It probably wouln’t help much if any into getting into a univeristy. But when engineering internships come by, then he will be able to say he has more experience using a CAD program. Most internships I have applied to want at least 1-2 years of experience. But also keep in mind that companies could use a different CAD program. I am just about to grasduate and I have learned 3 different CAD programs, but they are all really similiar.</p>