Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1400005
10 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2021 If you're a new PCB designer today, you may feel like a first-level fighter in "Dungeons and Dragons." You thrive on the variability and complexity of this career but moving up to the next level is oen the result of a series of choices that you have to make—oen without knowing what's going on. But there is one thing that you can control: your education. And the more you know, the more control you have over your career. Fortunately, new designers have access to more educational and training resources than ever before. ere are live and on-demand webinars, YouTube videos, blogs, podcasts, and now live, in-person conferences and trade shows are back. You can join a design organization like PCEA or IPC Design and attend chapter meetings online, even if you live across the country from that chapter. You can read industry magazines like this, technical papers from conferences, books written by the top design experts in the world, and the free eBooks published by I-Connect007, including e Printed Circuit Designer's Guide to... series, which have proven wildly popular. (Now that I'm a book editor, maybe I need a blazer with elbow patches and a meerschaum pipe.) But you must do your due diligence, like you were buying a company. I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that not every PCB design video on YouTube contains design techniques that would make Rick Hartley say, "Damn, why didn't I think of that?" It's up to you to separate the good training from the bad, the wheat from the chaff, to get slightly biblical. "It's up to you" is the operative phrase here. It's up to you to continue your design educa- The Shaughnessy Report by Andy Shaughnessy, I-CONNECT007 Design Education: Not a Roll of the Dice