I graduated college during the Great Recession of 2008. There wasn't a lot of jobs, so I took a construction job. Nearing the end of doing that, I hurt myself and kind of decided that wasn't for me. It pushed me to move from Massachusetts to California.
Coming out here, I wanted to stay in the construction industry because I really liked it, but I wanted to learn how things came together from the beginning. I wanted to learn how to create plans. Honestly, I didn't know anything about drafting or about blueprint creation, so I took a blueprint reading class before and then jumped right into learning how to draft.
I chose VDCI because it was the most well-known CAD program when I was researching the CAD programs in the area. The instructors are working professionals and have hands-on experience in real-world projects and can relate to the students' questions and come at it from a real-world perspective. My education at VDCI helped me get a job immediately, actually drafting in AutoCAD and Revit, and I've been using AutoCAD on a daily basis since i took the program. I actually train staff using AutoCAD on a daily basis and use the tools I learned in my training here to train my own staff.
I feel like it was a good amount of time because there were no gaps and I just got to build upon my knowledge without taking breaks. I just got to keep going. I feel like the program really prepared me for the certification exam. The format of the questions really aligned with what the certification testing was like.
I would recommend VDCI to other students because the program is well-suited to anyone that's trying to learn software from the construction industry. In the modern world, technology is changing and if you are trying to work in anything that is using a computer, you need to stay up to date with the new programs and the new technologies.
