Autodesk Student Engineering and Design Community Wins CODiE
Autodesk Inc. was presented April 17th with the
Software & Information Industry Association's CODiE award for best postsecondary instruction solution, for the company’s
Student Engineering and Design Community. The Web site is a free resource for students and faculty in engineering, architecture, design, gaming, and animation, offering free downloads of student editions of Autodesk 3D design software, tutorials, social networking, articles, shared work samples, a file and design library, job postings, curriculum, and more.
The site, launched this past September, already has more than 75,500 members. The most popular feature of the Student Engineering and Design Community is still free downloads of Autodesk's 3D software, such as Inventor, Revit, and Civil 3D. But students are also taking advantage of social networking features and other resources on the site designed both for learning and for connecting students with their chosen professional community. Shawn Conwell, a student at
Ohio State University's Knowlton School of Architecture says, "I know architecture firms are looking for graduates who know Revit, the 3D building information modeling software tool from Autodesk. I think it's great that Autodesk is helping struggling college students have access to the tools we need to compete for today's jobs."
Autodesk has 33 staff working on the Student Engineering and Design Community, and is committed to its future development. Student Community Website Manager Kathleen O'Sullivan says, "We are very proud of how quickly the Student Engineering and Design Community has gained momentum and recognition worldwide in just seven months. We monitor user feedback closely, and are planning many enhancements to make the site even more valuable to students and educators in the coming year."
Among the planned enhancements are an improved job and internship search function, profiles of Autodesk's commercial customers, more shared experiences from student interns, more project-based design competitions, Web casts and virtual seminars, and mentoring opportunities from Autodesk's commercial customers.