Re: PCB Design
Back when I first started (1975), there was no formal training for this type of work.
I started out as a electrical draftsperson.
It was all trial and error back then.
I learned by observing how others did it. When the person who did the single sided hand layout designs quit, I took over. I did hand layouts of single and double sided boards until 1983. The Company I worked for back then had purchased a Gerber Digitizer table, that would convert the hand layouts into digital data. They also purchased a Computervision Cadds IV system, that also contained a digitzing table.
This helped to teach the non-board layout operators learn the layout process, by copying a hand layout into a computer database, and manipulating the data on screen.
This also was very helpful in promoting multi-layer boards, as doing manual layouts became quite difficult in registering 4 or more layers of 4X scaled layouts.
Nowadays, there's schools in the US that offer 2 year degreed programs for board layout. Also, IPC offers certification course work for designers, but this is something I'll never do, as the majority of people that promote this certification weren't even around when I started doing board layouts.