A Q&A with Civil Drafter Sam Baker

“While in the drafting program at UVU, I was given the opportunity to do hand drafting on the drafting tables before we could use the drafting software. There are some very specific drafting/drawing skills, standards, lettering, and important lessons taught, that unfortunately can’t be learned easily in other ways.

Due to the change in almost every drafting program to move away from hand drafting to software, the students need to learn the purpose of standards, lettering heights and styles, leader line locations, dimensioning, and arrowheads, and understand the importance of clean drafting work. They also need to learn the importance of communicating effectively from conceptual design to the final design plans to their co-workers, supervisors, clients, and agencies for approval.

AutoCAD and Civil 3D are excellent software drafting packages. The easiness of students/employees to learn how to use the beginning portions of AutoCAD would be about 90 hours and Civil 3D around 120 hours. The drafting software makes it much easier for beginners to start work in the Civil Engineering field, but it might create a disconnect between the software use and the understanding of the industry. 

There’s so much information about the Civil Engineering and Land Surveying industry that is more easily learned on the job. People who become experts in drafting software,  work efficiently and understand the Civil Engineering and Land Surveying industry will continue to be sought after.

AutoCAD, Civil 3D, and other drafting software have numerous capabilities that most users never realize their full potential because it doesn’t impact them in the workplace and/or they don’t need those features for their current job. In the end, the drafting software packages are simply a tool to help deliver the final product for a client in the most efficient and accurate way possible.”