I have alluded to boot camp as part of entering military service in the United States. There's also boot camp for the Macintosh environment that lets you run Windows applications on Apple hardware. Well I got a message from Director of Worldwide Education Marketing, Alissa Perlstein. There's another boot camp.
This week in San Francisco, we're hosting a number of young people in the Gallery and on the 2nd floor. No, these aren’t our newest employees, they are college students from around the US here for a week of technical training. Every year, the Education team trains students to become advocates for our technology on campus – the Student Expert program. On this Monday, the Gallery became the training ground (or boot camp) for this preparation before these students go back to school.
Our boot camp roster includes:
- Approximately 20 students in Mechanical Engineering & Architecture discipline: Students from Carnegie Mellon, University of Illinois, Penn State, Georgia Tech, Purdue, and other fine institutions,
- Primarily Juniors who will be able to offer Autodesk mentorship on campus for two+ years.
Boot camp is designed to:
- Provide hands-on software training to Architecture and Mechanical Engineering students;
- Foster the passion students have for design while building loyalty for Autodesk software;
- Prepare students in becoming a resource and mentor for their peers on campus and to facilitate workshops, with the assistance of Education Solution Specialists, throughout the school year;
- Enable students to hone their leadership skills in preparation for a career in design.
Watching others pick themselves up by their boot straps (metaphorically) is alive in the lab.