About 30 students graduate from St. Clair College's Architectural program each year. Many of these opt to continue with Advanced CAD Applications, a post-graduate program. There were 21 students in this latter program last year, of whom six were hired before they graduated. AutoCAD supplier Automated Design Systems' president Bruce Lamb praises the College's architectural program, including the post-diploma advanced training in Mechanical Desktop and Softdesk applications. They are giving their students an edge on the competition in the job market and providing employers with highly skilled new employees.
Employers have to spend much less time training their new hires for their specific CAD application.
The advanced training in software like Mechanical Desktop can lower the cost of effective implementation of new technology. We ran two seminars at their campus in 1997, to which both industry professionals and St. Clair College students were invited. At the last seminar they arranged a remote live video link up with their Chatham campus. Jay Ertel, chair of the Building Technology and Trades program at St. Clair College, has been very supportive of partnerships with industry to improve the quality and relevance of the education the College provides. St. Clair expands its GIS program George Vrantsidis, faculty member at the St. Clair College of Applied Arts and Technology, reports that the College's post diploma GIS program is being expanded.