First of all, I want to thank Richard Doyle for giving me this great opportunity to blog for SolidWorks, and Patrick Cook for helping me set up the  blog  and  get  started.  I’m really new to this blogging thing, so I feel a bit nervous and excited, all at the same time.

OK, now to the part where I tell you what this blog is all about.  Until recently, SolidWorks  was something completely unknown to me. While in college, back in 1991, I was introduced to CADAM, as part of my Engineering Drawing class.  Teaching us CADAM, however, was more like a neat thing that would make our college look like it was ready  for the 21^st  century and give us something to brag about, but the reality was that back then, in Mexico, the possibilities of actually using CADAM (or any other CAD) at work were pretty slim, or so we thought. 

Shortly after that, I got myself a volunteer job as a drafter for a small contractor whose main business was to service sugar factories all over the country. We did everything  the old-fashioned way, or at least we used to, until one fateful day when the owner  got talked into updating his business by an old friend. That’s how our office got new computers, printers and something else: AutoCAD R10 and a plotter. The reseller sent over a guy who was supposed to train three of us (the owner of the company included) and, in only one week, teach us everything we needed to know about AutoCAD. Our teacher was actually an architect, who didn’t really have that much experience with the software and didn’t understand our needs at all. Well, my boss got frustrated really quickly, and decided his time was better used in other ways.  The other engineer and I finished the whole week of training only to realize that it wasn’t nearly enough, that we were, in fact, far away from putting AutoCAD to good use and making it productive for the business. AutoCAD seemed more like a neat new toy rather than the powerful tool it was supposed to be.

The engineers at work felt that it was just too complicated for them to try to learn AutoCAD. For them, it felt like asking them to simply forget about all what they thought they knew and start all over again. They decided they were too old and too busy for that, and they weren’t even sure if it was worth it at all. Since I was still a college student, it was decided that I would be the one dealing with AutoCAD. After all, I had plenty of time to sit down, read the books, go through the tutorials, and see if it could be of any use at all. I was not about to walk away from a perfect opportunity to learn something new and for free! With time, however, other companies began updating as well. Even the Mexican sugar industry, as reluctant to change as it is, began embracing the new technology and requesting it from contractors. By the time I graduated from college, in 1996, CAD was no longer a neat toy, it was a necessity, and my boss and the other engineers at work  finally realized that and began to learn. That experience taught me the need to embrace change at all times, even if it seems scary, to look forward to it, because you won’t be able to avoid it for long, and, actually, change can be good.  I continued to work for the same company, until I got married and left the country in 1999.

When I arrived with my husband to my new residence in California,  I experienced first -hand  the kind of frustration and discouragement my boss and co-worker must have felt when challenged to learn something so incredibly new such as  AutoCAD.  I quickly realized that what I had learned back in my country was not going to be enough to land a  job here in  Silicon Valley — I needed to update myself.  Our first baby, however, decided to arrive before my work permit did, and so, considering  the high cost of living and the outrageous cost of childcare in this area, we decided that it was cheaper for us and better for the baby if I took a break and stayed home, and that’s how I ended up opening this big parenthesis in my career and taking a long break to raise a family. 

Fast forwarding to 2007.  I’ve decided the break is over, it is now time to update, take a few classes, freshen up on a few old skills and learn some new ones that will, hopefully, help me find my way back.  That’s how I decided to learn SolidWorks. I noticed it was often required by potential employers, and so I became curious about it.  What I discovered was more than I expected, it was something I had never seen or experienced before: solid modeling. 

SolidWorks is a powerful tool, it’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s highly addictive, but it can also be very challenging, and even frustrating, for those of us who are used to 2D drawing and have no previous experience in solid modeling. There’s a lot to learn, and there are many resources available to do it. For some of us, some resources may work better than others, or may be more or less affordable, depending on our circumstances. Perhaps, you are one of those who find it easier to learn inside the structure of a classroom. Personally, I prefer to learn at my own pace, to learn by doing rather than just watching, and to take as much time as needed to really understand how it works, get deep into it, experiment, and ask questions to those more experienced than me. But, perhaps, you are in a situation where you don’t really have that much time and you need to learn by yesterday.   Whatever your circumstances, your style and preferences, it doesn’t really matter, as long as you don’t allow yourself to get discouraged and never stop learning. This blog is dedicated to the process of learning SolidWorks from the perspective of someone who is, well, just beginning. Please, feel free to share your own experiences, comments and suggestions, always in a positive and encouraging way, of course. We can all learn from each other.