College and University Information
This page offers more in-depth information on some of the books and courses offered for sale, relating specifically to colleges and universities. There is a separate page, "Trainers", specific to commercial MicroStation Trainers and Resellers.
We believe that technical students need to be "bilingual" in their CAD studies and should know both AutoCAD and MicroStation software. Many employers, particularly the larger ones, are demanding MicroStation skills of graduates. In view of this, schools, colleges, and universities should include MicroStation as part of their curriculums, or offer MicroStation courses through distance education that anyone can take, inside or outside the college. This arrangement allows colleges that do not offer MicroStation themselves, but to still have their students learn MicroStation at a cost comparable to a course fee in their own institution.
While Bentley Systems (MicroStation's developer) offers academic institutions a very competitive pricing arrangement for their software, the difficulty for most students where MicroStation is not offered is obtaining the software for a distance education course. To solve this problem, Bentley offers students registered in a MicroStation course the Academic Edition of MicroStation software at an extremely low price. This is a full-featured version and differs from the commercial program only in that a "Restricted Use" dialog box is present when the program is started. This dialog box cannot be closed, but can be moved completely off the screen. Link to Bentley's Academic page for more information. Also see the PowerDraft information below
In addition, Bentley offers its PowerDraft software free to students. PowerDraft is a slightly reduced-function 2D version of MicroStation.