I have considered myself a "Draftsman" since my last year in High School. In the late 70's (in High School), and the early 80's (in College), a person in the Drafting Technology field had to have a deep concept of geometry, simple mathmatics, and have a large amount of "Board Time" - ie having a T-sqaure, pencil, compass, protractor etc. and actually, physically, bisecting a line segment or finding the tangent of an arc.
Drafting has been the bulk of my working experience, since the early 80's. I have done well working for a number of companies, designing printed circuit boards, automated assembly lines and subway cars, to name a few places of employment.
However, the latest college grads in the Drafting Technology field that I have been seeing, have absolutely no concept of simple, basic geometry, or simple mathematics. For geometry, computer programs, such as AutoCAD, can work out all of the mathematics for you, with several one-letter commands from the keyboard. However, ask these college grads to come up with a mathematically correct "hand-drawn" sketch for a preliminary design, and they look at you like a deer in headlights. Believe it or not, in my business, sometimes you have to go back to "the drafting board".
Don't get me wrong, I am all for the advancement of technology. But are computers contributing to the "dumbing" of the educational system? Henrico County, in the state of Virginia, recently allotted a large amount of money in their budget, to lease I-Books from Apple Computers, for their grammar and middle-school students. Ironically, in a related incident, a Henrico school student was recently suspended for having "porn" on his Henrico-school-leased I-book. (Apologies, but all of the local links to this news story are unavailable or nonexistent).
There are many issues invloved with this argument. I know that technology is available to make our life easier. It is easier, by far, for someone to hop on the internet for research, as opposed to going to the library. But are we losing touch with the "old school" methods? In this ever evolving technological world, is there even a need for "old school" methods?
As an analogy, it is not any different from having "Person A", working with an analog camera, taking courses in photography, studying compostion, and the relevance of aperture vs. shutter speed. Or having "Person B" with a digital camera, who with a push of a button, can automatically set the aperture and shutter speed, based on the surrounding environment. Chances are, Person B's photgraphs will be near perfect for shutter and aperture, but their "compositions" will suck. There will always be that human, "hands on experience" variable.
LLS