<p>I choose to study engineering in college, specifically Mechanical Engineering. I know there are a lot of designing projects to do. Nowadays engineers usually use CAD/CAM softwares to do their job, for example, AutoCAD, Pro/E, UG. Will colleges offer courses about this kind of softwares? Which softwares do I have to master?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Your school should train you in whichever software the instructor has a preference for. In my intro MechE class we used Pro Engineer, though I think people that stuck with MechE learned to be proficient in a number of different programs.</p>
<p>If you're still in HS and have the opportunity to take a class in drafting (traditional or CAD), I'd recommend taking it. It'll be great preparation, and you'll be waaaaaaay ahead of the kids that have never done that sort of thing before.</p>
<p>I am fairly certain that Notre Dame offers a course that is required in CAD/CAM as well as another required course in Measurement and Data Analysis. You can visit the Eng website of ND and see all courses listed that are required.</p>
<p>Well, I've read many college's catalogs, and CAD/CAM is definitely one of the required courses. I wonder which software is the most popular in college education.
Actually, I'm learning traditional drawing(stretching) and AutoCAD now. And my AutoCAD courses will be completed next month. I'd like to learn another engineering software after that, since AutoCAD is just a basis.</p>
<p>PS: notre dame AL, I would say thanks to you. You've answered me some questions about ND, and that helps. Nice to meet you on this forum.</p>
<p>My son is currently a freshman in AE. He had a required course already in MatLab (not graphics, but engineering programming) and is currently taking a required course using Ketia (hope that's the correct spelling), which is similar to SolidWorks. He used a little SolidWorks in his Intro to Eng survey, but I believe his school has switched from SolidWorks to Ketia for modeling.</p>
<p>Matlab and Solidworks are both analysis programs, though... CAD is just for making pretty pictures (okay, conveying information in a visual format).</p>
<p>Be careful about assumptions that you'll be learning CAD through a required course wherever you go, though... You'll be taught a lot of modeling analysis tools, but not every program will teach you how to draft, which is a good skill to learn. As a civil engineering undergrad at Rice, we literally begged for an AutoCAD course to be established, and one never was. That's probably the only case in which my undergraduate education weakened me at all.</p>
<p>I don't know how often AutoCAD is being used in the field, but Inventor is a much more powerful tool for Mechanical Engineers in many aspects.</p>
<p>and yes, MATLAB is used as well. Its like a super calculator.</p>
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I don't know how often AutoCAD is being used in the field, but Inventor is a much more powerful tool for Mechanical Engineers in many aspects.
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<p>Yeah, I was under the impression that AutoCAD (along with Microstation) is much more of a civil engineering thing, and that mechanical engineers really don't use it that often...</p>
<p>Ketia... perhaps you meant Catia?</p>
<p>Mechanical Engineers do not really use AutoCAD often? I'm a little disappointed to hear that. But in my AutoCAD courses, we usually draw mechanical and architectural pictures. And AutoCAD has a specific version called Auto Mechanical, which is used for mechanical purposes. </p>
<p>Well, that's not really my point now. I want to decide which software to learn in the following days. Is Pro/E a good one for a prospective mechanical engineer? My teacher recommend me to take the courses.</p>
<p>Inventor and Catia(probably) are mentioned. I know Inventor, which is also an Autodesk software, right? But I've never heard Catia before. I'll go for some information about it.</p>
<p>Thank you, Ken</p>
<p>CATIA</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Not sure how applicable it is to Mech Engineering in general, but the ME students at Embry-Riddle use it.</p>
<p>Here at UCLA, Autodesk Inventor is used. Kind of sucks - in the industry Pro/E and Solidworks is used more often.</p>
<p>Plus, what sucks is that we don't have MATLAB in our curriculum anymore!! Worst decision to take it off and replace it with C++!</p>