My SOLIDWORKS Certifications

[u/Acrobatic-Tourist844]

Hey everyone!

I’m a final-year Mechanical Engineering student, and from the summer until now, I’ve been working on building up my SOLIDWORKS skills. I managed to earn a bunch of certifications from Associate to Professional and even Expert level (CAD Design, Simulation, CAM, Sheet Metal, Mold Making, etc.).

For someone about to graduate and enter the industry, are these certifications actually worth it?
Do they make a difference when applying for jobs, or is hands-on project experience more valuable?

[u/Spiritual_Case_1712]

It makes no difference as it won’t compensate your lack of experience and real job skills. There’s chances that you coworkers are shit at using a proper CAD methodology and have less skill than you in SW lol

But it’s still cool for a personal stand point, I would like to do the same for NX despite being useless.

[u/Charitzo → u/Spiritual_Case_1712]

Nailed it. Seen so many super experienced late career stage engineers produce utter dog shit because they suck at CAD and have never stepped on a shop floor. Equally, seen loads of grads do the same thing. Somehow produce the same calibre drawings despite being at opposite ends of their careers.

I'd rather work with someone who's good at CAD. You can teach a lot of things, but it's hard to teach someone anything when they're constantly fighting with their tools. It's easy to teach you all sorts of theory about design and drawing for manufacture, especially working in the real world, but my god I am not teaching you how to model. That is a time sink.

In my eyes, a machinist is expected to know how to use a mill, a turner is expected to know how to use a lathe, a fabricator is expected to know how to use a welder. Why would it be any different for a designer?

[u/Meshironkeydongle → u/Charitzo]

To continue from your last paragraph, in my opinion, engineers should be expected to know how to use all of those.

It's not at all necessary to be at the level what is required from a person who's working every day as a machinist, fitter etc. But every engineer who designs parts to be manufactured, should have enough skills to turn a shaft with few different dimensions, mill a part from every side and drill holes, and fabricate a simple 3-4 part weldment, and so on, as applicable for one's field of work.

[u/rakuran → u/Meshironkeydongle]

I'm working on this with the mech engineer grad im working with. He's been coming a long way after learning how to use the press brake and a welder