Into the “real” world.

Hello my name is Joe.  I have been working in the Engineering industry for about 7 months and been at my current job for almost 3 months. After graduating from Northwest Technical Institute in February of this year I had a vast amount of jobs to choose from. There are so many different possibilities in this field that I found myself not sure what to do or even what type of job I wanted. For most it seems that the starting pay is what drives them to decide on a certain job. I wanted to find a job that paid well and used a program I enjoyed using. I am from Minnesota, right around the Minneapolis area where there is a technical jungle of drafting and design jobs for entry level candidates to choose from. I was lucky enough to be offered an internship while I was still attending school so I was able to explore many options. Only one out of the 6 job offers I had used SolidWorks so I was more than willing to give them a chance. I couldn’t be happier with my decision, I work with some really great people and I love what I do.

After being in the industry for a while I began to realize how much I never learned in school about SolidWorks. I did some online research and I couldn’t believe how many resources were available to me. I found out about using macros to automate SolidWorks and have actually been helping my company develop a standardized way to do drawings and fill in title block/bill of materials information using macros. With the help of Matt Lorono and other online resources I have been able to customize macros and actually am able to understand a lot of the code it takes to make one.

If you are fresh out of school be sure to explore every option available to you, take every job interview you can. This will serve you greatly in the future because you are not only seeing what else is available to you but you are building relationships and networks of people that may want to hire you down the road if things don’t work out where you end up.

I’ll continue to document my journeys and keep you updated!

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper