I was wondering if anyone could give me some feedback on this line of work. I would like to pursue it and wanted to hear back from someone who is in the field already. Thanks!
Sure, you can make a career of it, but which tools you need to learn depend on the industry you want to work in. Automotive and/or aerospace? You’d better know CATIA.
There’s no such thing as a generic “draftsman”.
Nobody will hire you to draw. They will hire you to do something useful–ie. to draw specific,technical
stuff.
But before you can draw it, you first have to know your stuff.
Go to college, learn some technical stuff. A 2yr community college is fine.
Learn about electronic circuits,or about architecture, or about structural steel detailing, or surveying/mapmaking.
Then, once you know some stuff, you can draw it.
I went to “drafting school” in 1979. That was when we were still using the board. Along the way, computers showed up, and I learned Autocad, then Pro/Engineer. I also became a mechanical designer. I work in the Oil and Gas field.
Designers help engineers by being creative and knowing more than just how to draw (or model, in my case.) They need to understand tolerancing, and differences in materials, and lots of other things besides how to use the software.
I absolutely LOVE my field. It is interesting, and I don’t hate the pay. I’ve done pretty well with no college. However, these days you need an associate’s at least.
I highly recommend becoming a designer.
I will that say that there are at lot fewer positions in today’s world than there used to be. With CAD programs being so powerful, engineers do their own drafting in many cases. If you are interesed in the mechanical side of things, I would advise doing a CAD/CAM program. That would lead to jobs like programmer in machine shops. That said most of those guys in these positions come up from the shop floor so they have the machining background.
If you enjoy it, go for it but be aware of the job market. Personally I am a machinist who can do some CAD drafting and would love to do a CAD/CAM program if circumstances were different.
I don’t recommend calling the career “drafting” anymore. I’m an engineer with experience with several CAD systems and I agree with the comments that most engineers do their own modeling but many DON’T know what makes a good drawing! A good designer can aid them.
For decent money you need to know a solids modeling program and the drafting extensions of it. Pro-Engineer and Catia are two leading higher-end systems. Autocad tends to be used by what I consider 2nd-Tier and smaller companies unless possibly in architectural design. NX is good but less used. You should get a 2-year degree to have a chance of advancement in most organisations that can afford higher-end CAD. You need to stay with higher-end systems or in 5 years you’ll be stuck with their old CAD and no other employment prospects.
What a great story!
I worked in the IC field starting around that time and we had legions of Draftsman* drawing circuits and they made good money, too. Then, like you said, computers (or work stations) came along and that changed everything. Good to hear you were able to ride the technology wave into the future!
*They were mostly men, too. Then we had what we called “digitizers”, who were mostly women and they would literally trace the designs with something like a mouse in order to, well, digitize the info.
They’re still mostly men. 
I’m in this field, and what I always tell people who ask me about it in person is that every business that makes a product pays somebody somewhere to make technical drawings of it. That means there are lots of potential jobs out there for drafters/designers. Software varies, technical knowledge of particular field varies, but I’ve worked in three different industries and done some contracting in a couple more. There are a lot more similarities than differences, and in my experience engineers get their plates loaded up doing project management work and need drafter/designers to do the grunt work. It’s been good for me, 25 years so far with no formal schooling specific to the field, just lucky being at the right place at he right time to enter trade.
My experience is over 20 years old, so take it with a grain of salt. But when I was studying civil engineering in college, I often worked as a CAD draftsman over the summers. I had learned AutoCAD in high school architecture class and once I started my program, I found a number of opportunities to use those skills.
Most of the actual “work” consisted of either transcribing old hand-drafted blueprints to CAD or creating new working drawings from the engineer’s rough sketches.
I also did some manual drafting as well.
I assume someone still does that sort of work. Engineers tend to get paid a lot more than draftsmen, so it is probably still cost effective to have draftsmen put together the actual drawings while the engineers focus on the engineering.
But as I said, I haven’t been involved in the field in 20 years. For all I know, it’s all done with robots.
Not a robot yet. But I am a girl. 
I’ve been in the field for nearly 30 years and have gone from board work to 3D modeling design work (mostly in the Building systems world - Architectural/HVAC/Piping/Electrical). I love it and after all these years the pay isn’t terrible. The industry had been claiming that professional drafters will become obsolete for the entirety of my career, and while it is true that there aren’t rooms full of drafters anymore because of computer aided drafting programs, there is still a need.
Like other posters above, I suggest a good 2 year program, many community colleges still have pre-engineering programs that include required CAD/drafting classes. I attended ITT Technical Institute from 85-87 and recieved a very good basic engineering drafting/design education (I have no idea what the circulium is now, though), but the best education is experience. No two companies and no two engineering disciplines do things the same way and it was valuable in my case to get a good broad base of experience.
I have been everything from a warm body in a drafting pool to being the CAD Manager of a small consulting engineering firm. Right now I work at a medium sized engineering firm doing P&ID drawings in the Oil and Gas department and because of my broad experience in different fields as well as different CAD programs, I can adapt to pretty much any drafting situation that is required of me. (except Civil. I hate Civil. patooi!) I always make an effort to learn about what I am depicting as well as learning about the CAD program I am using, not just copying lines and text like a monkey.
If you think you have the aptitude for it and the patience to put up with doing the same thing over and over, day after day, I say go for it!
You don’t want to be a “draftsman,” you want to be a Design Engineer, and you’ll have to learn CAD. Don’t worry, there are a lot of similarities between different CAD packages as far as model building approach.
Or NX or Creo (formerly Pro/E) or Solidworks or SolidEdge. Catia’s not the only game in town. Among my customers, big aerospace components manufacturer has switched from Pro/E and Catia to NX, though their automotive group still uses Catia. Big national lab uses Solidworks pretty extensively. We use whatever a given customer uses, but if we get to pick, we prefer SolidEdge.
There are some free CAD tools you can download (Autodesk has a free version, geared toward making models for 3D printing), which will help you get familiar with the CAD modeling process, though the capabilities do fall way short of the full paid-up packages.
I was just looking at Cummins Engine’s “Careers” page, and was astounded to find they wanted a “Draftsman” (now called a Drafter in polite society) for mechanical drawing.
I didn’t think anything outside a computer did any drawing, but there it was.
(I did mechanical drawing (drafting) 1971-74)
There are
Civil (subdivisions, roads, bridges)
Architectural (structural, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc.)
Mechanical (machine parts and assemblies)
Maritime
types of drawing.
Unless you have a specific career path elsewhere, learn mechanical and the rest will fall into place.
I don’t think any one has mentioned GIS yet. Geographic Information Systems.
I started in drafting just from taking classes in high school. Now, this was 35 years ago, but it ended up with me, today, being a GIS programmer.
I started in oil and gas mapping, and then data conversion from paper maps to digital in the late 80’s.
A lot of data conversion is going overseas now, but GIS is huge, and is applied to damn near everything.
It can be quite specialized work. I have a friend who is a mechanical engineer, all he does is design connectors. You know the fiddly bits that connect part a to part b.
A girl engineer / draftsman!?
“Robot” would have been more believable.
I know your is a bit joking, but I’ve known plenty of female draftsmen over my career. Even back in the pen and ink days.
While I love my comfy chair and computers, something in me does miss the big old drawing tables and car sized blueprint machines.
Now forgive me because I’m trying to figure all this out and find a good program to enroll in.
Which of these two would be the better one to go to if either of these is applicable
I’m on Long Island in New York state so if anyone knows of another option available I am very willing to hear it out. Thanks everyone!
community college is probably much cheaper than a private school. And it’s probably just as good if not better.
Yeah, I just wish we had more in my classes when I was in engineering school.
It was quite a shock when I’d take an elective in the business or liberal arts school and half the class were women.