Howdy everyone, I'm hoping this will open a big 'ol can' o worms. Something that has been under my skin for a while now, has been the ability, or rather inability to learn and therefore switch to different CAD systems. Are there any ways to do this? Luckily, I'm happy at my job, but that's not to say I always will be. I'd like to know how designers have been able to train on other CAD systems. My only experience is on Protel, and a little on Orcad, and then just as much as I've been able to learn from other CAD vendors' demos. My company has too much invested in our host system, and not enough incentive to switch, so I'll never be able to train on other systems here. Personally, I'd never be able to purchase a copy of a Cadence, or Mentor product, so what's a designer to do? I think it was in an installment of Mary Sudgen's column in P. Circ. Design (or maybe not) that an engineering manager was quoted as saying: you can get practically anyone to learn a design program, but you can't get just anyone to become a designer. I wish everyone felt that way, but unfortunately, I don't have a lot of confidence of being able to convince a hiring committee of this. Thanks for all feedback. Richard ################################################################ DesignerCouncil E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE DesignerCouncil <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################