"I Don't Need SOLIDWORKS Training"

Training, we don’t need no stinking training. Being a support application engineer, my colleagues and I hear this all of the time. What customers don’t releaize is how much more productive they would be if they just take a training class.

Here are some of the excuses we hear:

1. I took a course in college.

• A college professor is not there to teach you CAD or how to use a CAD tool. They are there to teach you a profession. Not to mention that we teach you in four days (essentials), what takes them an entire semester to go over and they don’t cover a lot of what we do.

2. I just watch YOUTUBE to find out how to do modeling in SOLIDWORKS

• Great. We make videos for YOUTUBE as well. But how do you know you are being taught the correct way of doing what you are researching? What are the credentials of the person that made that video? How do you know that they are showing you the most proficient way to do that task you are researching? That video will show you how to do something, but it doesn’t know if that is the most effective way to accomplish what you are trying to do.

3. Here is a great one we hear all of the time.

• This is how we have always done it.

These are just a few reasons we hear about not taking training.

Well it just might be time for you to take a refresher course and learn something new. Pick up a few techniques to make your job easier. You can get out of the office and focus on improving your skills. The instructor will be able to give you little tips and tricks that no other medium will be able to. He will be able to explain why to do thing one way and why another way would be more beneficial later in the design process.

Design intent is key to the process. Certain CAD modeling techniques are not specific to CAD packages but are beneficial to the design and performance of your CAD models.Techniques such as saving fillets, rounds, and chamfers to the end of the model tree will benefit you downstream.

Just because you can does not mean you should. Meaning, well yeah you could model all of those threads on those screws, or that twenty-foot chain with all of the links. Oh and yes SOLIDWRKS has a really cool chain mate, but if you want to be able to open that 50,000+ assembly you had better rethink that. So do yourself a favor and take some training. You will be more productive and your models will thank you.

We just had an essentials class in our Cincinnati office. We always ask the student to introduce themselves and ask them about their experience. Do they have previous CAD experience? Do you know SOLIDWORKS? Those basic get to know you questions. This was a unique class. We had seven students. All with previous CAD experience. All but one of the students had over five years of experience on other CAD systems. Their SOLIDWORKS experience ranged from a couple of months to at least two years.I asked them if the training was beneficial to them since they all had previous CAD and previous SOLIDWORKS experience. It was a resounding YES. They all would highly recommend taking the class.

“The tips and trick learned will save hours of work.” said Zach. Everyone said that learning the button locations and the proper modeling techniques was invaluable.
Nate had to be convinced to come to the essentials class, but said “The little tip and tricks I have learned will save me hours of time every week. Hearing other people’s questions brought up other questions of my own. Having a trainer with lots of experience to answer the questions was helpful.”

So when we hear people on support say we don’t need training…
Think Again, YOU DO NEED STINKING TRAINING.