What I would suggest is if your school has a particular book they use for their AutoCAD class, pick that one up and try learning it yourself. If you feel you aren't learning enough by yourself, then you've already got the book you need if you want to take the class later.

As an aside, my school (UW-Milwaukee) wanted to stop teaching AutoCAD back in the early 2000's. Faculty argued that "we were a design school, and if we wanted to learn AutoCAD we should go to a tech school".

The school's AIAS chapter ran free AutoCAD and 3D Studio seminars taught by students in upper level studios. If your school has a chapter, you might want to ask if anyone is willing to help.

I've been wondering how easily I could teach myself Revit...I might have to buy myself a book...

I learned it by myself so can you. Don't pay for a class. It is a good thing I'm a book learner but Autocad is not that complicated (like Revit). In general the best way to learn a program is to get familiar with the interface first. Just click on the menus up in the window and check out the commands/options etc. Another awesome way to figure out any program: right click+ click on "properties"! (no kidding!)

you can learn anything yourself, school classes are for lazy people, I just now realize what a waste school was, should've have just home-schooled myself all along...

Thanks guys, Im glad I didnt take the class, I just bought the autocad book, Id rather just go along with the books instructions than pay a teacher to tell me to read the book. Looks complex at first but, it will just take some messing around with.

I think everybody has different learning method and pace. Classes don't give you that option maybe unless you choose to take classes from a private teacher (one of my friends is teaching Revit and charging 20$ p/h). If the class is let's say every 2 days then it may be too fast and tiring for me.

if you can't even figure out AutoCAD yourself, you should simply quit architecture.

Autocad has nothing to do with architecture, just a tool to draw lines.

obviously Chriswinterpill knows nothing about architecture with that ignorant comment. I never said I couldn't figure it out I am asking for the best ways.

I'm glad all I can do is draw lines, "randomized" Autocad is a heck of alot more than that, if you know how to use it. Having spent about half of my life on yellow trace, vellum, sepia paper, mylar hand drafting. Nothing like making corrections on sepia paper....oh and I just missed drafting on Linen, as there were still active projects hanging around the office I first worked in being done on linen. You really have no idea as to what you missed.

A great tutorial for learning CAD is Lynda.com

In 6 hours I learned pretty much everything I needed.

Awesome videos that walk you through the fundamentals, which once you have, all you need is practice. They also have tutorials for Maya, Adobe CS, etc... I got it for free through my school but I def think its worth the investment... much more so than a book.