Drafting

Check at your local community college. Paying for a college course is probably at least as cheap as a CAD seat, much cheaper if the CAD seat is useless to you.

seems maybe there are 30 day demo deals- might not get the full blown experience tho- I believe Carlson might offer?

I am running Carlson2014 on C3D2014. Do you think the 30 day would work as a stand alone?

somebody smarter than me will have to answer that:-S

Lol. Thanks for the input gents. I will follow up with the manufacturer's

Former employer, Columbus State Community College, has an online AutoCAD course, ARCH-1112-W01-73764 Web Basic CAD Drafting, starting 10/19. Schedule listing is under "Autumn Semester 2014" Set subject to "Architecture (ARCH)" and check the "Hide All Locations" option to see only online courses. I believe this includes access to a temporary student home license.

YES I KNOW ABOUT ARCHITECTS AND CAD! I also know the instructor of this course and would recommend one of his courses to anyone starting out in CAD. His introductory course has been a requirement of ALL the CSCC Civil and Survey programs for many years. Ask those here from Ohio about the reputation of these Civil/Survey programs.

EDIT: Corrected the link above, originally had the second course linked.

At my local community college, when I took CAD classes, I was able to register software at home under a student license. If memory serves, the student license still has an expiration date, but it could be longer than the 30 days.

I started to learn cad by watching and learning the data flow from field to office. Then on my own time would shadow the cad guy to see what this cad stuff was all about. The rest is history.

I don't think training software is the answer to this issue.
You can get tons of training data on using Carlson, but that is not the same as CAD training.
He needs to learn the basic drafting skills first. Check your local community college or votec center for Drafting 101 classes. There may even be night classes available.
While he is doing that, train him up on survey skills such as layouts of sections, townships and rangers, and the like. When he is ready, send him to one of the Carlson College centers. That training will more than pay for itself!
He needs the basics first. He may be a whiz at Carlson software, but if he doesn't understand what he is drawing and how to depict it, you will have problems.
There is just so much more to it than draw point to point.

Ob,

The Demo (Full) Version of AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015 is a 60-day trial. More than enough time for an energetic go-getter to get a feel for it. The Tutorials that come with it are excellent.

Dave

That is how I learned as well. However I had a very technical computing background. My coworker does not have the same background as I.

Student license.

I haven't checked lately, but it use to be if one is a student at a member university, you can download and use any autodesk product for educational purposes a year at a time.

Yup - depends on where he starts - we all started at different places when you think about it.