<p>Long story short, I was supposed to take Statics this Summer but due to some personal issues, I will not be able to, so I will either be working 40 hours/week at my current on campus job or starting an internship, also working 40 hrs during the Summer.</p>
<p>Since I will have some free time, I figured I could start learning Autocad, since a lot of internships and jobs in IE and Manufacturing prefer people with at least a decent knowledge of Autocad.</p>
<p>Question is: How did you learn Autocad? I was thinking about buying the Autocad 2014 for Dummies book and spending sometime at our IE/ME Lab everyday after work. Is it something that can be self taught over 3 months? </p>
<p>I just want to understand the basics and hopefully be able to do some cool stuff with Autocad by the time Fall Semester starts.</p>
<p>My university requires all engineering students to take a CAD class. I learned AutoCAD though that class. Personally, AutoCAD is straight forward and comes easily. You can definitely learn the basics within three months when you’re working with it daily. </p>
<p>I don’t know whether AutoCAD 2014 for Dummies is a great books, but a workbook that has tutorials and some objects that you can recreate will be helpful. </p>
<p>Depending on what engineering you are, a 3D app like Inventor may be more useful. Ask your dept. advisor which flavor may be more useful.</p>
<p>I taught myself AutoCAD, back in the dark ages (1989) - work at my company was slow, so I got permission to spend time learning the program. It’s definitely doable. What branch of engineering are you in? If civil/structural, I would recommend finding some construction documents and trying to recreate the plans, sections, and details on them. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask me. (I only do 2D, not 3D, though.)</p>
<p>Thanks for your responses. I am in Industrial Engineering and based on what I found out, we use AutoCAD mainly to draw manufacturing plant and facility layouts.</p>
<p>They don’t look overly complicated but the vast majority of Manufacturing internships I have looked at prefer some knowledge of AutoCAD</p>
<p>Why not take the time to learn a package that does simulations of such things i.e. manufacturing, etc. In the mid 90’s at Purdue we used ARENA and CINEMA I think, very entertaining if a bit low tech. I took a facility design class and it did not involve much beyond Visio. Check <a href=“Arena Simulation Software | Arena Simulation Software”>Arena Simulation Software | Arena Simulation Software;