A Technical Skill for Drafting and Design
One of benefits that I had back in my high school days was that it was technical school. Technical high schools here in Las Vegas have the luxury of teaching their students various skills that some college entry level classes teach. As an alumni at Northwest Career and Technical Academy, I had the opportunity to learn a technical skill that I believe will help me in the future as a mechanical engineer. This skill is CADD, or computer-aided design and drafting.
Designing a certain project has to start somewhere, whether it be on paper or on a computer. Fortunately, there are computer programs in this day and age that are capable of designing some pretty unique and aesthetic things, such as cars! The software programs that I used back in high school that demonstrated these design capabilities were Autodesk Inventor and Solidworks. Both of these computer softwares are used to draft 2-D and 3-D designs. These designs could be as simple as a wheel, or as complex as a whole car engine. Seldom did I use Inventor and Solidworks, I only used them during my freshman and senior years of high school, respectively. However, it laid the foundation of how I approach things on a computer-aided design level.
While it has been a while since I picked these programs back up, I do possess some knowledge on how to use them. I could shake off the cob-webs and look at Youtube tutorials and/or demonstrations videos about these programs. I was astounded as to what top-notch Inventor and Solidworks users can do on these programs, and I hope to one day reach that level as a mechanical engineer. As of now, this is my plan of action, because buying a student bundle for these programs is a bit pricey, especially in my savings. I would also like to look into some drafting classes that would benefit my interest in designing cars and creating 3-D models of them. There is always time to learn and improve upon knowledge and/or skills, especially in a world that is ever-changing, so why not start now?