5 Insights: What Engineering Faculty and Students Taught Me About CAD

Recently, I had the chance to visit a university and spend a few days with engineering faculty, teaching assistants, and students. I toured their computer labs, fabrication spaces, classrooms, and workshops where students are using CAD to design everything from simple gears to rockets to super-mileage vehicles.

Having worked in STEM education and with higher ed engineering programs for over a decade, I’ve had countless conversations with faculty and students about how they use CAD tools in their coursework and projects. I thought I had a pretty good sense of what makes Onshape valuable in education.

But on this visit, I had the opportunity to go deeper. Hearing firsthand how these users are interacting with Onshape – from a teaching and a learning perspective – reshaped some of my own thinking. As someone who works to ensure our team provides a smooth and supportive experience for educators and students, I found their feedback especially valuable. These conversations surfaced fresh insights into how Onshape is changing the way instructors teach design and how students engage with it. Their perspectives not only affirmed what we hear often, but also challenged me to see things from their point of view in ways I hadn’t expected.

Here are five key takeaways from our conversations:

1. First Impressions Matter

Something that really struck me: one faculty member shared how a student’s first experience with CAD can have a big impact on how they view engineering as a whole. If that first experience is clunky or frustrating (e.g., if they spend their first design class waiting for the software to install or reboot), it can sap the excitement out of designing and building something new – the main motivation for many students to pursue an engineering degree in the first place.

But when the tools work with them instead of against them, students feel empowered, even losing track of time as they do their design work. That initial learning curve matters, and we’re proud to make it smoother with Onshape.

2. No More Chasing CAD Lab Hours

The flexibility of Onshape stood out immediately. Because it runs entirely in the cloud, students can access their work from anywhere – whether they’re on a laptop in the library, a tablet at home, or even a phone in between classes. This untethers them from the rigid schedules of campus computer labs and lets them work when inspiration strikes (or deadlines loom). One student mentioned how freeing it was not to have to plan their day around when they could book time in the CAD lab.

3. Teaching Good Design Practice Becomes Natural

One faculty member shared how Onshape’s version control and history tools have transformed the way they give feedback. Rather than trying to piece together what a student did (and when), instructors can see every design decision and guide students through improvements step by step.

It’s a win for both teaching and learning: students better understand good design practices, and instructors can provide meaningful, targeted feedback without guesswork.

4. Branches Make Exploration Safe

Onshape’s branching feature came up several times. Students liked how they could explore new ideas in a separate branch without risking their main model. It gave them the freedom to experiment, plus the safety net to know their work wasn’t at risk. Instructors, too, appreciated that they could demonstrate concepts or suggest edits without overwriting a student’s progress. It makes design a more collaborative and less intimidating process.

5. “We Feel Spoiled”

My favorite quote of the day came from a student who said, “Honestly, we feel spoiled using Onshape.” Students whose first experience with CAD was Onshape weren’t even aware of the issues that normally plague a user’s experience when learning design on other platforms. They shared how, when talking to students who had learned CAD on traditional desktop tools, they began to realize just how much easier their own experience was.

Between the installations, crashes, and file management issues of desktop-based CAD, Onshape’s cloud-based solution felt like a game-changer. That sense of ease meant more time for designing and less time spent troubleshooting.

Shaping the Future of Engineering Education

These conversations reminded me that the tools we give students can shape not just their projects, but their confidence, creativity, and even their career paths. When the CAD tool gets out of the way and lets them focus on what they came to do – design, invent, solve problems – they thrive. And that’s what education should be all about.

If you’re an educator interested in bringing Onshape to your students or a student ready to explore what design can look like when your tools work with you – we’d love to help. Learn more about Onshape for Education and see what’s possible when CAD gets out of the way.

Alyssa Walker is the Senior Director of Onshape for Education at PTC.