The ability to create and modify drawings created in AutoCAD is one of the most important skills a young design student can master. There are many companies that make AutoCAD available to high school, trade school and university students at a substantial discount, including Journey Educational Software, Studica and CADCampus. But it is not enough to merely own the application, students must actually learn how to use AutoCAD.

In times past, many high schools gave some training in AutoCAD to their more technical students. However, classes in software applications are usually among the first casualties when school budgets get cut. Teaching AutoCAD not only requires workstations and software, it requires skilled instructors as well. In some cases student from one high school can attend classes at another. In other cases, high school students can attend courses at a local Junior College with permission from their school counselor. If you have a young design student in your family, this is something you should contact your school district about.

Trade schools and Junior Colleges across the United States frequently offer courses in how to use AutoCAD and related applications like Autodesk VIZ, Inventor and Revit. In some cases students can sign up to take just a single course in AutoCAD, but more frequently they must enroll in multiple courses. Often CAD classes require that a student complete prerequisite courses in how to use a computer and how to create design documents on paper. It is important to note that a full course load is frequently required to make a student eligible to purchase AutoCAD at a discount. Taking a single class in AutoCAD almost never delivers discounted software as a benefit.

State College and University Students may or may not find courses in AutoCAD listed in their course catalog. Some schools require engineering and architecture students to know AutoCAD without providing any courses that teach them how to use it. These students frequently give themselves a crash course in the application using online tutorials or video based training products available through Amazon and other resellers. These resources can be quite useful, but they can also be quite expensive.

If you are a student, or know one, who plans to work in a design environment, it is important to understand how taking the time to learn AutoCAD through a high school, trade school, junior college, state college or university can turn into cold hard cash. Entry level CAD users make $15-$20/Hr in most US markets, and folks without any CAD training have a very hard time getting any job at all in a design office.

If you are a design professional and you haven’t mastered AutoCAD, it is not too late. Without CAD skills you’ll find it hard to get a job no matter how many other job skills you have. With good job skills, and the ability to create and edit drawings, you’ll find you are very employable. It takes most design professionals less than 40 hours of instruction to master AutoCAD well enough to start work on their own drawings. So if you haven’t mastered the application, it really time you went back to school.