oliver_wilson49•1mo agoProlific Poster

My boss gave me a choice: stick with 2D CAD for a big city job or learn 3D BIM in a week

We had a huge project for a new public library in Springfield, and the plans were a mess. The city sent over a partial BIM model, but our office mostly uses AutoCAD. My boss said I could either spend the next two months drafting everything in 2D from the PDFs, which I knew how to do, or I had to figure out Revit fast to use their model. I was scared I'd slow everyone down, but I picked Revit. I watched a ton of videos online and basically lived at my desk. The first three days were awful, but by Friday, I was making basic sheets. In the end, using the model caught a bunch of clashes we would have missed. Has anyone else been thrown into a new software under a tight deadline? How did you handle it?

3 comments

3 Comments

vera_murphy1mo ago

Totally get that feeling of being thrown in the deep end! My cousin is a graphic designer and her whole firm switched to a new layout program overnight for a magazine pitch. She said the first few days were just clicking random buttons hoping something worked. It's wild how fast you can pick things up when you have no other choice, though. Sounds like you powered through and it actually worked out for the best with finding those mistakes!

the_piper1mo ago

Oh man, that's so true! It makes me wonder if the panic itself helps lock in the learning, like your brain goes into overdrive because the stakes feel high. Maybe that frantic button clicking is actually a weirdly effective way to explore a program's limits fast.

felix_henderson541mo ago

Switching software for a pitch sounds like a nightmare.