Structural engineering graduates looking for work are familiar with the phrase: "knowledge of 'named software' is desired but not required". You sigh a sigh of relief, hoping that the HR folks are not like the MIT admissions committee who lie to students every year that the minimum GPA is 3.0 but never admit anyone below 3.5.
As a result I have embarked on a labor of love to learn all the engineering software I can access. Most software are available for trial download or have educational versions which are easy on a student budget.
My latest software project is MathCad 14. My professor in college was an adjunct who worked at a fine structural firm. He used MathCad for all his notes which tells me that he uses it in his daily work as a structural engineer.
It took me about 2hrs to learn MathCad. The tutorial on MathCad is vey intuitive. MathCad is to engineering as AutoCAD is to architecture. AutoCAD allows draftsmen to do their 2D drawings on an electronic sheet. MathCad allows engineers to document their calculations sheets on an electronic page.
Unlike Microsoft excel, MathCad allows engineers to keep track of the contents of equations. Give it a try. Request a trial version or buy a student version.
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