On my journey to prepare for a career abroad, it came to my attention that despite having hands-on experience with Solidworks I have never completed an official course on it. Although we learned it as part of the Engineering Technical Drawing course at university, I figured it would be best to take an online course on it as well, not only for the official certificate but also to refresh my memory and compare what I have learned with what is thought internationally.
I found the highly rated “Solidworks: An introduction to the 3D editor” on Alison suitable for this purpose. This free online Solidworks course gave me an introduction to Solidworks CAD software. Solidworks is a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and a Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) application used to create Solid models. It helps users sketch 2D drawings using geometry and create 3D models for any part or assembly. With this course, I reviewed how the versatile 3D printing models, designs, and CAD files can improve designs.
Apart from general UI introduction, the course covered basic sketch skills such as constraints and relations, trim, mirror and patterns with related examples and practices. As well as basic skills required to turn the sketch into a solid such as extrude boss/base, sweep, revolve, chamfer and cuts.
I’ve prepared a summary of the course for download, however, I strongly recommend taking the course if you are planning to start working with the software. Since the course did not go over the assembly process, or the background theories however, I decided to take another one as well.
The second course, named “Diploma in engineering graphics and software” went more in depth, covering the principles engineering design, different types of views such as isometric and sectional, methods of creating surfaces as well as mate options in Solidworks assembly which was what I wanted to review.
Although the quality of the course was not as high as I expected, and many of the concepts covered there might not ever be used in real-life situations, I am happy that I completed the entire course, since there were some hidden gems inside. As the lesson summaries provided in the course were ridiculously inadequate, I have prepared a text file with common questions and answers covered in the course, downloadable from the link below. You can also see my learner certificate for both courses right after that.
Diploma in engineering graphics and software (certificate on Gdrive)
Solidworks: An introduction to the 3D edditor (certificate on Gdrive)
To cap this process off, I studied for the linkedIn assessment test, by looking at sample questions online and finding the answers to the best of my abilities. I managed to write down over 40 common questions that are regularly repeated in the test, with what I believe are the correct answers. Although this does not guarantee your success in the test as there are many questions that I have not included, I am certain it will help you immensely. Feel free to download the file from the link below and if you manage to add to this list or find any faults in my responses, please share them with me. You can contact me here.
Arash Moradian 