Quote Originally Posted by rclayton
Certification is a good way to show a prospective employer that one is knowledgable in a given piece of software, but by no means says anything about proficiency. I would take an operator with 5 years of experience over someone with 10 certifications and no practical experience any day.
Same here.
I have taught acad for 7 years in a formal situation (and many more years informally).
I sometimes get to see other teachers teach - and, more importantly, to hear student's opinions of teachers. Most of the the teachers are just that - they learned just enough about acad to teach the syllabus. That doesn't mean that they are good at using acad; most could never hold down a job even as a cad operator. So, what chance do their students have unless they are also getting real experience outside the classroom?