Getting Familiar with CAD Software

LakeWashington
Tue, 29 Oct 2013 09:51:52 +0000

A few engineering internships that interest Lake Jr. expressly noted that familiarity with AutoCad or Solidworks was a desired qualification.

Lake Jr. will not be able to enroll in any courses involving CAD until next year. I offered to purchase the student version of either AutoCad or Solidworks to play around with, but I wonder if that’s really worthwhile, as the 1-year student license will expire before he can take a CAD class at school. I understand that the engineering school provides access to CAD software only if one is actually taking CAD classes (makes sense), so if you need to practice on your own, that’s it…you are indeed on your own.

My question; in Lake Jr.'s situation, is it practical to avoid the expense of AutoCAD or Solidworks for now and instead experiment with a program such as TurboCAD 2D/3D, which doesn’t have a restricted license in terms of time of use? The TurboCAD option would only be a short-term experiment to get some familiarity with CAD in time for a summer 2014 internship/Co-op.