Dealing with employers

kate_leipold_rit

This is my first semester using Onshape in a college freshmen design course.  Students are frustrated by employers responses.  I'm working on training them with feedback on why we're doing this. 

I'm also planning on encouraging students to have a few projects tagged as demo pieces with the mobile app.  I hope that showing the part, feature tree, assembly, drawing, version control, etc in the app will be very effective in getting through to employers.  Anyone else getting push back?  How are you dealing with it?

TimRice

What pushback are you receiving from employers? What would these employers like to see?

If students enable "Link sharing" than anyone with a link can view the model without an account. This should allow employers to jump into the document and see what the students are designing.

brian_brady

I am not sure what push-back employers may be giving Kate, but I have had some pushback from students until they see that what we are doing is learning how to use a design tool in a way that translates to nearly any other platform. Lots of students, and likely some employers, want all design courses to use the software they use, such as SolidWorks. I have been able to talk to some employers about Onshape while on internship visits and they generally understand why I use it. The proof in the pudding for them is that my students can fairly easily transfer their solid modeling skills from Onshape to SW, SE, Inventor, Catia, and even NX. The important thing is to not "teach the tool" and focus on button pushing but to teach good modeling and design intent practices that can be used with any tool.

As an aside, I recently talked to an engineer at a major, worldwide machine tool builder with facilities in our state at a "lunch and learn" they put on for our students about Onshape and solid modeling in general. (They are looking for a school to get interns and full-time employees from and heard from some of their current employees that we would be a good match.) He is sending me a few full drawing packages from some older machines and fixtures that were either created before CAD or just in 2D so I can incorporate modeling of the details and assemblies into my class next fall. He is excited to see what my students and Onshape can do in his world. His only caveat was that I have to provide him back the best student work converted to a file format he can use with his FEA package. I think that is a fair trade.

kate_leipold_rit

TimRice said:

What pushback are you receiving from employers? What would these employers like to see?

If students enable "Link sharing" than anyone with a link can view the model without an account. This should allow employers to jump into the document and see what the students are designing.

Perhaps push back isn't the right word for it.  I think it was more of a "Onshape? Never heard of it." kind of a brush off.  The students are aware they can share files with anyone.  I am working with the students on coaching them how to sell their skills as a benefit, not a detriment.  

And of course - the goal is on teaching design intent.  I think a very quick demo, even on the mobile app, would very quickly confirm that the students are well versed in parametric 3d modeling.  

john_mcclary

True, Onshape does have a slight stigma to the unknowing. They assume because it's not AutoDesk, SolidWorks, or Unigraphics it must be a toy.
I have been trying to convince the people at my work that it is better than what they "think" a web browser app can be for the last couple years.
They are impressed at the speed I can get things done with it, but are too stigmatized to actually open it and give it a go.

We are interviewing a new kid fresh out of school and I was surprised to hear he was familiar with Onshape and Solidworks.
Although his class was in Solidworks and he only "Heard" of Onshape. It's good to know it is starting to become a household name.

Best they can do is understand how to sell to their employer they have a strong knowledge on parametric sketch/feature/assembly/drawing/BOM in theory and in practice. Try and avoid "I only used Onshape" or "I only used "Inventor". I don't care what cad package they leaned when we take someone on. I just need to know how quickly I can get them up to speed. Even those who claim to know SolidWorks and have been using it for "5 Years" I have let go after 2 or 3 weeks because they didn't know the first thing about parametric modeling as a whole bundle of basic skills.

Let them know as long as you have confidence in yourself, and you can prove you know your way around a model. The software is just a tool. Doesn't matter if you use a spanner wrench, or a socket wrench. If you can do the job with any tool they are given, they should have a better time convincing an employer they are worth a try.

Edit: I guess I should have read the whole thread. Looks like I repeated @brian_brady, sorry 

Markku_L

I think it's quite nice "reference" to say that, "well, Onshape was started by guys who started SOL****RKS".

adrian_vlzkz

kate_leipold_rit said:

Perhaps push back isn't the right word for it.  I think it was more of a "Onshape? Never heard of it." kind of a brush off.  The students are aware they can share files with anyone.  I am working with the students on coaching them how to sell their skills as a benefit, not a detriment.  

 

If a potential employer hasn't heard of Onshape, maybe a blessing in disguise.

3dcad

If I recall correctly also SolidWorks was in similar position.. and whole 3D modeling was (is still) something many employers have never heard of  

anthony_botting312

I gave an OnShape workshop to the entire freshmen class in BioMedical Engineering at UT San Antonio just last week. It worked great and I believe this collaborative and cloud enabled tool is a big part of a big future in CAD and CAE. I'm a certified SW Instructor and we use that and CREO/ProE at work. I emphasized the process in parametric solid modeling, and not the picks - as others mentioned, the design paradigm is the same. Employers will get on board soon enough and I believe it's important for new engineers coming-in to the market to know about the latest technology. A few of us are using it at work for basic design and development - we are very, very impressed we can show customers and share designs with tablets and phones and instantly. It's really something to see that and show it. The sharing and collaboration is (I believe) one of the BIGGEST technology enablers, esp. for teams. I have never seen anything like this (can you say Google Drive =Sharing?).  So development of this product went like this: people start Pro/E; some jump ship to start SolidWorks; some jump ship to start OnShape; OnShape is acquired by Pro/E. Full circle. Now, OnShape has financial backing of a really, really big company. That really says something about this technology and where it may go and how big it may get. Nuff said, right?

huw_gullett

Our Yr 11 students were involved in mock interviews with local employers a year and a half ago. When I saw the list of companies I went and asked specific ones to come and view the work that my students were doing. During the tour of the workshop I laid out a folder of work by a student who had Onshape drawings and designs within. They interviewed him the next day for a four year apprenticeship and when he completes that they are going to put him in the R&D department. By the way the company makes big earth moving and mining equipment!!!

I'm sure it was down to seeing his CAD work on Onshape.