David Cristiani

Can you get CLARB certified?

Try a free demo of any of the Intellicad options out there. They are AutoCAD clones. They are certainly more relevant than AutoCAD 13 (unless you mean AutoCAD 2013).

Look at Bricscad or other Intellicad options. They are clones of AutoCAD, but at much more affordable pricing. The commands are nearly identical to AutoCAD, so the AutoCAD instructional books should be fine. They have “LT” versions and you can buy them rather than lease.
There are several brands of Intellicad  – Accelicad, Cadopia, CMS, Progecad, …

The technology to fill in the gaps is catching up balancing features with $. I just purchased this Leica s910 setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWX7PVToYs0

Maybe the first question should be “why are you teaching and not practicing?”.

There are three ways to go about it. One is to figure a way to get started where you are. Another is to try to get hired somewhere else and then move there. The third is to relocate where you think you’d like to live and do the best you can from there.
My preference in life is to be where I want to live over living somewhere that I don’t want to…[Read more]

Your response above is exactly what I was alluding to.
“They were only interested in what they do” 
Well, they are not in business to do what you want to do. If you want to get your foot in the door at a CE or LS office you have to put the landscape design/architecture out of your head and think like a CE or LS. I assume that you are trained in A…[Read more]

Are you marketing yourself as a landscape architect to those firms or specifically how your skill sets fit their needs for simply drafting as-built plans or whatever else they need done? 
A cover letter letting them know how your skill sets are valuable to them and that you are unlikely to be a competitor in the future may help. Some LAs tend to…[Read more]

We wonder why landscape contractors often think landscape architects are idiots?

Where do you stop? Do we have to show them a virtual reality of a design before we can sell them a design? If people are too simple to not be able to follow a reasonable presentation, I for one, do not want to deal with them.

It is strange. I see the same thing as Lance.
When dealing with cut and fill slopes it seems that the ratio is horizontal:vertical.  Massachusetts uses this convention in defining a wetland resource area called a Coastal Bank.
My understanding is that H:V is a US convention when dealing with contours and the opposite is true in Europe.
When…[Read more]

I often wonder how many people are successful in Landscape Architecture with an MLA without a BLA. You may want to put that question out there separately.
Is it like trying to be a military officer without going through basic training? I don’t know, but having been through the rigors of a BLA I can’t imagine doing this without it and I would not…[Read more]

Any thoughts on going for a BLA? … or one of the programs that has the 5 year BLA/MLA. You might want to contact one of the universities that has been offering the fast track MLA with the BLA to see if you can get it done in three years since you already have a Bachelor’s in another field.
My opinion is that if you want to design, the BLA will…[Read more]

Some misinformation – Each state in the US has its own requirement for becoming a Registered Landscape Architect. Most require a BLA or BSLA from an accredited program, two years of internship, and passing of L.A.R.E., but not all. Some accept other “experience” or other education. Some require internship, some do not,
This is a pretty thorough…[Read more]

I hit this one up from time to time.
http://www.caddetails.com/
Uniblock used to have a hatch collection available on their website, not sure if they still do.

Also,
It is not lost on your employer that you are more marketable if you are licensed. It can make your employer think that it is a good time to make sure that a valued employee does not have any reasons to test the market and evaluate your pay rate.
If you are not going for your license it may send the message that you are comfortable and there…[Read more]

I don’t know what is typical, but it does add to your marketability if/when you either nee or want to work somewhere else and especially if you step out on your own. The best time to get licensed, in my opinion, is when you can. If you should ever find yourself looking for work, you probably won’t have the financial resources to get licensed, nor…[Read more]

Anthony,
Bricscad is one of the Intellicads. It is dwg and I’ve never seen anything funky with those files when in the CE office. If I needed full Acad, that is what I would get. You used to be able to run Carlson Survey software over it, but I think Autodesk got Carlson to not work with them anymore, but I’m not sure on that. It does lisp…[Read more]

Anthony, I don’t believe that you can use lisp routines in LT. It does have the align command which I am embarrassed to say that I was unfamiliar with. No issues with importing or clipping images or pdf. Not exactly sure what you mean by coordinate based layout, but if you mean laying our using surveyor’s bearings and distances, that is no problem…[Read more]

There are a number of companies that produce Intellicad which is basically a clone of AutoCAD for about 20% of the price. AutoCAD seems to have worked out business deals with some of the “add on” software companies so that you may find some are no longer available for Intellicad. I believe there are some companies producing landscape specific…[Read more]