If you are thinking about going to school for a Drafting Degree then RUN! Drafters draw blueprints and engineers design them. The current problem is that somehow Drafting and Designing have become synonymous terms. It used to be that a Drafter would draw blueprints from an engineer’s/architect’s verbal instructions and/or the engineer’s/architect’s sketches. Now the Drafter is supposed to know what took an engineer/architect 4+ years to learn. If the Drafter cannot “pick it up” what took the engineers/architects 4+ years to learn then they throw you out the back door on your face in the gravel. Also, Engineers or Architects are refusing to take time to train Drafters. They say that they don’t have time or go grab a book off of the shelf and figure it out. A two-year Associate Degree in Drafting WILL NOT prepare you to be an engineer and do an engineer’s job! I have not designed (like an engineer) commercial buildings or other engineering projects, but I did draw them by verbal instruction, engineering sketches and blueprints. My Computer Aided Drafting degree, basically, prepared me to draw blueprints using AutoCAD software. Unfortunately, the local Drafting courses in Kentucky, the Two-Year Drafting programs, do not prepare you to do engineering design work (what engineers due with a 4+ year degree). Typically, all students come out ready to draw blueprints, as Drafters have always done in the past, but not design without a Bachelors degree like an engineer is trained to do. Today, for the modern Drafter, it is turning into the old catch 22 you-need-experience situation. No one has time or is willing to train yet they demand experience. Furthermore, if you can’t “pick up” what took engineers four years to learn in a year or; in most cases, thirty days or less then they will lay you off and insult you by saying you couldn’t catch on fast enough. So what is the Drafter left to do? A downside for the engineer in today’s modern engineering office is that they are expected to spend all of their time drafting while they could, more productively, spend their time dealing with public relations and engineering design. Also, most architects and engineers that I have spoken with have a weak background in CAD and take only a couple of classes in Drafting during their college education. Lastly, as stated in my objective, I am looking for a company who is flexible and willing to train for non-Drafting engineer Design tasks. The former title for my past experience would be a “CAD Detailer/Drafter”. I have drawn blueprints, as I was prepared to do by my two-year Associate Degree, but I have not “designed” as one who is “trained” by an architectural or engineering firm. Currently, I have been out of a Drafting position for over 2 years because engineering firms have become too “picky” and want something for nothing. I guess it time for me to move on and realize that Drafting is a dead field.
