CAD/Escaping from IT support

[Hudson]

Sick of IT support - won't bore you all by whining about why but i've been looking at CAD work - technical drawings or 3D work perhaps, however i know very little about the field at the moment. If anyone who works in CAD and has 5 minutes, can you let me know:

- what the best way of getting in to it for someone already in a job with bills to pay, i accept there will be a fairly significant pay cut however i don't have a boat docked at Monaco so it won't be that much of a change
- What software is best to start learning? I've seen Autocad, CATIA and Spaceclaim in use at one of our clients. Autocad seems to be the popular choice.
- What are the hours like? I'm not one of these people leaving number 11's in the car park at exactly 5pm, and i'm definitely not adverse to out of hours work (installed a domain controller at a funeral home once, was there until 2am, that was morbid!) but i do have a social life to some degree and my friends all work Mon-Fri.
- In support you start out as a toilet bowl for everyone else's st, and either eventually work your way up to a point where you hate both your clients AND the people who report to you, or blow your brains out. What is the sort of career path in CAD?

Many thanks for your input.

[Hudson]

Thanks for your input, I will start looking into evening courses or similar. If it requires a full time commitment then obviously some sacrifices will need to be made.

I don't have any experience in engineering industries outside of knowing how they operate off the back of supporting their IT setups, i do have an interest in aviation and military stuff mainly because that's the area my Dad works in.

The reason i was looking at CAD is the same reason i considered Web Design/Database Analyst roles, its so i actually have something to show for my work. In support i stem the tide, perhaps get a grunt of appreciation once a month and get on to the next problem. Even the guy spitting in your big mac can look out and see someone enjoying the result of their work.

[Hudson]

filski666 said:

I used to work as a CAD trainer and the course examples are carefully design to work - in the real world, they never "work" - and you have to learn many ways of getting around issues.

exactly like Microsoft courses then! Lovely sanitized virtual environments where everything just works (even DirectAccess!)

Then you get in to the real world and your clients kit is so mismatched that you start to wonder if they stole it.


Back on topic, i get the impression now that CAD is more of a tool than a job description so i will do some more research in to the sort of fields that interest me.

Thanks to everyone for their input