“After having graduated from the 4 year Industrial Design program at Emily Carr Institute I began an 8 month, labour intensive, job search. I felt as if I did not have a deep enough expertise in any one area that could help me obtain a job. Many jobs mentioned that I would need experience before I could be hired yet there were no employers willing to give me the chance or opportunity to further my learning. My frustration drove me to ponder changing careers, going back to school, or offering to work for free in order to gain experience. The SolidWorks Mentoring Program offered me the chance to obtain an education that could function like work experience.
Marc is extremely knowledgeable, not just about SolidWorks and Mechanical Design but everything related to it. Every minute spent with Marc is filled with learning and challenge. His enthusiasm and confidence in my abilities was a breath of fresh air after months of disappointing job search.
I learned so much more about what SolidWorks is capable of and where it can be applied. The Mentoring Program helped improve my speed, efficiency, and ability to deal with error messages. Marc was able to tailor the SolidWorks Mentoring Program towards my career goals. Only half way through the Mentoring Program I received the opportunity to work with Marc on a contract job. Before I had completed the SolidWorks Mentor Program, or the contract job, I was finally hired at my first job in my field. Marc has continued to communicate and support me through my employment”
Melissa Mailhiot
“I came to Canada with high hopes, but only to discover that “Canadian experience” and “who you know”, was more important at that moment than the experience, motivation and skills I brought with me. I had been working in different fields for about 2 years, getting quite desperate seeing my dreams weren’t coming true, when I decided to ask Marc to help me.
At that moment I had basic knowledge of SolidWorks, and very little exposure to the Canadian standards. During the mentoring program, as the SW learning process went on, I was also exposed to real life design situations, was given different exercises of more and more complex levels, and taught the secrets of efficient parametric modeling. I learned how to model parts and built assemblies quickly and efficiently, taking advantage of the features SolidWorks offers, but also keeping in mind the design intent.
I can hardly describe how good the mentoring program was, except to say that at my new job I quickly became a sort of mentor myself, teaching my colleagues SolidWorks secrets and tips. I was hired to convert all the machines the company produces into SolidWorks, but after three months, they decided to hire somebody else less skilled to do the job and then moved me into the Research & Development department. In both situations, the 3D modeling approach I acquired in the mentoring program was of great help, especially in R&D where the parts and assemblies are very often modified and redesigned. I am so glad to be now working in the challenging and rewarding job that I chose for my career – all it took was some retraining and mentoring from someone who cares. In fact, Ubique even found this present job for me.
I recommend Ubique’s Solidworks Mentoring Program to anyone who is looking to find meaningful work in this area”
Marius Rusu
“In 2007, I moved to Canada from Australia where earned my bachelors degree in aerospace engineering and worked for a few years. I had some previous experience using a few CAD packages, but the degree of practical experience I had in mechanical design was relatively limited. After a few months of job hunting, I decided to take the SolidWorks mentoring program to improve my skill set and ultimately increase my chance of finding a job.
I was given a number of exercises to complete, the great thing about the exercises was that completing them was not just a matter of following a set of instructions, they were open-ended in that I had to figure out on my own how to complete the exercises and often use my own engineering judgment. Any time I got stuck, Marc provided some great pointers to not only steer me in the right direction but improve my modeling approach so that I was doing things more efficiently. In addition, progressively completing the exercises allowed me put together an impressive design portfolio which went straight into my CV.
In the end, I wasn’t able to complete the mentoring course because I got offered a full-time job at a local aerospace company half way through the course! And I’m sure the portfolio I’d put together up to that point contributed to me getting the job offer.
I would recommend the mentoring course looking to improve their CAD skills and maximize their chances of gaining employment in mechanical design”
Brian Chow
“I had been in Canada for 5 years and I was supporting my family working at 7-11 for the whole time. After so many hundreds of resumes sent, I couldn’t get a job in my industry, despite earning my Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in Germany. I had almost given up on ever working at what I trained so hard for when I decided to take the Solidworks Mentoring Program at Ubique Mechanical Design.
First I was told to take a Solidworks course, which I completed at BCIT. Then I was given exercises to complete but it was different than the BCIT course where I was taught step-by-step. I had to figure out how to do the assignments by myself, and there were many of them to complete. After reviewing my work with my Mentor, he gave me many tips on how to work more efficiently and then I completed more exercises, using his advice.
I was not only learning how to model in Solidworks, I was being challenged in machine design. The functioning of the machines that I was working on was not obvious to me and I had to figure out how they worked, and what they were for. Some dimensions were deliberately wrong and I had to repair the model to make it work, based on how I thought it functioned. It wasn’t easy! But it felt like I was solving the problems I would have to face when working in a real engineering office environment.
I had not even completely finished the first module and I was hired recently on salary at a company, doing Solidworks and Autocad! I could hardly believe the difference in response I was having to my resume when I included my Solidworks Mentoring experience. At my interview I could show them my impressive portfolio and could easily answer any questions they had. I am now 2 months into my 3-month probation and my employers are giving me positive feedback about my job performance.
This was a great experience for me and I recommend this program to anyone who needs local experience to improve their chances of being hired in industry”
Demissie Yigebiru