04-22-2011, 10:18 AM
It doesn't worth, especially if you're gonna pay from your own pocket. And you'll get a benefit of the course if you have troubles understanding the ground mechanics itself (definition, principles), and don't have any experience in numerical modeling. But believe me - the course will not be enough to overcome the lack of knowledge and understanding in the matter.
The really good thing is that you can ask questions to the lecturers. But take care - if your question is "simple" you'll see that the answer of the "professors" is so obvious, that could reach it without asking (these are most of the questions "students" ask). If you put very difficult/complicated problem, then the answer will not suit you, because they will say it needs further research, or the program doesn't cope with such problems, or it is not investigated yet, and so.
The only real profit of these courses is the increase of the number of potential buyers of the software, and you personally don't care of that.
If you find some "external" financing for the course - go!
If you want to know what is numerical modeling in geotechnics - go!
But remember - these courses will not fill big gaps in your knowledge. My impression was that they are for ~50 year old engineers which know perfect what they need to obtain as a result from a calculation, they know all the principles in general, but are not familiar with numerical/computer modeling, and during the course they can bridge their present understanding with the use of this particular software.
By the way, the lecturers are very wide educated and qualified people, and they are flexible enough to descent to the level of the students to explain very-very basic things.
The really good thing is that you can ask questions to the lecturers. But take care - if your question is "simple" you'll see that the answer of the "professors" is so obvious, that could reach it without asking (these are most of the questions "students" ask). If you put very difficult/complicated problem, then the answer will not suit you, because they will say it needs further research, or the program doesn't cope with such problems, or it is not investigated yet, and so.
The only real profit of these courses is the increase of the number of potential buyers of the software, and you personally don't care of that.
If you find some "external" financing for the course - go!
If you want to know what is numerical modeling in geotechnics - go!
But remember - these courses will not fill big gaps in your knowledge. My impression was that they are for ~50 year old engineers which know perfect what they need to obtain as a result from a calculation, they know all the principles in general, but are not familiar with numerical/computer modeling, and during the course they can bridge their present understanding with the use of this particular software.
By the way, the lecturers are very wide educated and qualified people, and they are flexible enough to descent to the level of the students to explain very-very basic things.