Have you ever found anything easy to learn at first? Have you ever easily learned something that seemed to be overwhelmingly difficult for others to grasp?

If something comes to you naturally without much effort, that’s a sign you’ve likely found a skill you can turn into a career.

CNC programming can seem easy. If it does, that’s awesome for you because you’ve found something that you’ll likely enjoy mastering. While CNC programming seems simple at first, you can also spend a lifetime learning new, different, and more efficient ways to program.

If you want to grow your skills fast, here’s some things to keep in mind:

Borrow from Others’ Knowledge

In any profession, there’s people with years more experience than you. And there’s people with years less experience.

You can actually learn from both. You won’t learn as much from people with lesser experience. But they can still teach you things…and maybe sometimes how not to do CNC programming.

People with more experience have made many mistakes and have learned a lot. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and learn everything on your own, talk with others, ask questions, and observe their behavior to learn what you can from them.

Do Practice Jobs After Your Work Shift

Yeah…so you may not be thrilled to stay later after your work shift ends. But it’s a great opportunity for you to practice new jobs and learn new things. Plus, your bosses may observe your behavior and keep you in mind for promotions or more difficult projects, which increases your status and usefulness at your job.

Online Learning

There’s an abundance of YouTube videos on just about every subject…including CNC programming. You may not get hands-on opportunity to run the machine. But you can still pick up bits and pieces from others.

Sites like Udemy and Instructables have free courses you can take to learn both beginning and advanced CNC programming.

You may be able to take courses at a nearby local college. Just Google “CNC programming courses” to find options near you.

You Have Plenty of Opportunity to Learn

How you want to learn is up to you. But the point from all this is that you have the opportunity to do so.

The typical employee does what they have to. And by doing more, you’ll be the one who stands out. Who knows what that could lead to in your CNC machining career?

Back to Blog