I'm a student and a beginner and figured i'd ask for some guidance 1

[CHALLENGERSRT]

Good morning/afternoon,

I currently live in Memphis; TN and I go to Tennessee College of Applied Technology for their drafting program. I will be getting certified in AutoCAD. So far I've only been at the school for about two weeks, and we haven't dived super deep into the fields yet. My goal is to go into either the structural/ or civil portion of this career. Right now, really don't know a lot about AutoCAD and the only times i've worked with the platform is on campus. The 3D software I'm familiar with is Blender however i know that's not the industry standard and it's not what is used to make detail/shop drawings. Before I got enrolled, I bought a Technical Drawing textbook from amazon a few months before now and i've looked through it a few times. I just recently started picking it back up.
There are a few things that I want to work on achieving in the next few months. I know how important networking is and so I've been putting out emails to different firms in my city asking if I could shadow the contractors/engineers/surveyors on some of their projects. I mainly want to get into the projects that involve the highways/tunnels/flyovers/railroads however I've stated that I'm open to seeing more. I've been writing down terms from my book I bought and i also read that it's best to know multiple disciplines. I only got one response out of 6 emails/firms. They just said they will pass the email to the decision makers.
Another thing was to be able to sit in some of the meetings that the firms have with clients so i can hear from both sides of the transaction. Anyways, I could use some help if any of you are near Memphis or can put in a good word, please let me know.

 

[3DDave]

Include the state highway department on your job search. You might also look into some of the trades that do the dirtier work - pouring concrete, for example, that might need people on the job sites. The more familiar you are with the basics the easier it will be to talk with people higher up.

It will take a lot of experience with you before they would let you into meetings with clients.

Have you asked the placement office at the college for help?

 

[dik]

If you can find employment with a small two or three person office, it would be a great place to learn. I picked up autocad by studying a book, "Mastering Autocad" by Omura and did a chapter a night (50 years back). I had experience as a drafter; when I started engineering the one firm I worked with we designed and drew our projects. I seem to recall the autocad version was 3.14 (or thereabouts) It was a pirate copy and an architect and myself split the $50 cost... back in the times of the 8088 and 8087 processor.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[zelgar]

This is the time to be sending out resume for Summer Intern jobs. This appears to be a link to the TDOT Summer Internship Program:

https://www.tn.gov/tdot/human-resources-home/tdot-careers/internship-program.html