Brad,
For all intents and purposes you are like a kid coming out of a technical
drawing school, knowing how to draw with AutoCAD, but no training in
architectural drafting.
Forget your prior 10 years except to say that you are pretty good at
AutoCAD, and have a good all around knowledge of the software.
As for standards, every office will have its own set of standards, and
anyone they hire would need to learn those at the beginning.
There are other "standards" that are legal such as building codes, and also
how things are built. Much like you learned how to build furniture, and
that the details needed to reflect how the furniture was built, the same
holds true on a larger scale. When you detail in architecture you need to
know how the contractor is going to build it. You have to allow room for
his hammer. You have to know how to waterproof something....
When I was just starting out, well before computers, an architect hired me
for no pay to roll up his old drawings in an attic of his office. My job
was to roll them up tight, put rubber bands on them and tag them, and put
them on the shelves. After a while I started looking at the drawings
first.
Later, I quit for a paying summer job of laying floor tiles, and the
architect handed me one of the sets of drawings and told me to trace it, and
learn to draw, and look at what I was tracing and think about what it is
saying. He also asked me if I had looked at any of the drawings while I was
rolling them up. For a moment I was thinking I was in BIG trouble for
taking time to look, but I admitted that I had done that, and he confessed
that was the reason he stuck me up there, to look at the drawings.
If you know anyone in the field of architecture or any other field you are
interested in, get a set of old drawings and see how they did the job.
When you interview, do not be shy about taking a beginning position. If you
are a fast learner and ask a lot of questions before making mistakes, and
you learn from your mistakes on the first time, you will quickly prove your
worth, and move up. Make sure you get a job at a firm where they have
current software and good equipment. If you get a job at a firm where they
don't like to spend money on work tools, you will find they are also shy on
pay scales and raises, and don't understand that having good tools, happy
employees leads to better productivity, less errors, and over all a better
product, more jobs, and in general a happier life.
Good luck.
Jack Talsky
wrote in message news:5129383@discussion.autodesk.com...
I spent 8 years laying out furniture and shelves for a furniture distributor
and 2 years as a surface modeler.
I should have never stayed at the furniture company for so long. I knew
that I was digging a hole that would be hard to get out of....now I'm trying
to claw my way out.
When I interview, I'm embarrassed to say that I spent 8 years drawing
shelves and have no knowledge of drafting standards.
Any suggestions as to how I can get up to speed??
Thanks
Brad