For me CAD is pretty much the opposite, I rely heavily on the apps, I spent about a week trying to learn to draw before deciding I didn't really want to spend m

For me CAD is pretty much the opposite, I rely heavily on the apps, I spent about a week trying to learn to draw before deciding I didn't really want to spend months or years on it. I'm not a mechanical engineer, I mostly only do incidental CAD and hobby level work, so it's not really essential to have the deep understanding of space that real MEs need. I often don't know what sequence of operations I'll need until I actually open the app. Generally it's more of an "Oh I need a mounting hole, lets look around on the screen and see where one could go" thing, a lot of the thinking is in the app rather than in the mind. Of course you can't make nicely parametric things without a lot more thought so I will often wind up having to redo things that aren't one offs...