SOLIDWORKS certification in Khmelnytskyi National University (Ukraine): 50 students received 64 different certificates

On July 2, in Khmelnytskyi National University(Ukraine) the awarding ceremony was carried out for those students and postgraduate students who successfully passed official certification exams from Dassault Systémes (http://3ds.com) – a world leader in the development of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) systems for computer modeling in mechanical engineering.

Today, SOLIDWORKS de facto is industrial standard in most countries and is widely used, in particular, at leading industrial enterprises in Ukraine to design parts, assemblies, and machines of any complexity and purpose.

That is why students of leading higher education establishments around the world use SOLIDWORKS to study engineering disciplines: from the basics of 3D modeling to complex engineering calculations. Khmelnytsky National University was one of the first higher education establishments in Ukraine to introduce modern SOLIDWORKS technologies into the educational process for training students of engineering specialties. Since 2009, due to the support of Dassault Systémes, the university received the official status of SOLIDWORKS Academic Certification Provider,which allows to carry out official SOLIDWORKS certification exams. It enables students and educators to receive certificates confirming the appropriate level of knowledge in computer modeling and engineering analysis. In 2011, a specialized computer laboratory – the SOLIDWORKS Training and Certification Center (room 3-103) was opened in university and it was visited by the representatives of Dassault Systémes.

SOLIDWORKS Center. Students taking certification exams, June 2025

In order to prepare our students for official SOLIDWORKS exams, the head of the SOLIDWORKS Center Prof. Viacheslav Kharzhevskyi regularly organize additional classes for the students, and based on the results of such trainings, students have the opportunity to take certification exams online in university’s SOLIDWORKS Center. Such exams are accepted in an automated mode by the certification server of Dassault Systémes. The peculiarity of student training in the last academic year was that during the autumn semester prof. Kharzhevskyi organized classes for students (and postgraduate students) who had previously successfully passed the basic level certification exams (SOLIDWORKS CAD Design Associate – CSWA) and wanted to further improve their level of knowledge by preparing for professional level exams (CSWP) in different fields of SOLIDWORKS functionality, in particular: professional exams in 3D modeling, design of sheet metal parts and welded structures, creation of complex parts using surface modeling, drawing tools, as well as conducting engineering calculation using SOLIDWORKS Simulation.

Different types of official SOLIDWORKS certification exams

And in the spring semester, during February-June 2025, an additional advanced training course was held at SOLIDWORKS center for the students who were planning to prepare for the SOLIDWORKS certification for the first time – the basic-level certification in 3D modeling (SOLIDWORKS CAD Design Associate – Certified SOLIDWORKS Associate), gaining the necessary knowledge to successfully pass the CSWA certification. This training course included the following topics:

In addition, the course covered the theoretical grounds of additive manufacturing technologies and the practice of working with a modern 3D printer ZORTRAX M200, which was received by the SOLIDWORKS center from the European Commission through grant funding under the TEMPUS project.

This year, the ceremony of awarding SOLIDWORKS certificates was held in the university for the 13^th time: as a result of the training at the SOLIDWORKS center, 50 students of the universitysuccessfully passed SOLIDWORKS certification exams and received 64 certificates in different fields. Moreover, this year, for the first time, exams were organized not only at the basic and professional levels, but also at the highest expert level – SOLIDWORKS CAD Design Expert (Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert, CSWE). Today, Khmelnytskyi National University is the only higher education establishment in Ukraine that organizes the highest level of SOLIDWORKS certification exams for students (and educators) as a SOLIDWORKS Academic Certification Provider.Totally, 10 students of our university passed the professional (CSWP) and expert (CSWE) exams, receiving 15 such certificates. The more detailed information is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 – Students received CSWP and CSWE certificates

Last year our university also organized SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate (CSWA-S) certification exams for the students (for the first time in Ukraine) – to test their knowledge of modern engineering methods for calculating parts, assemblies, and structures for strength in SOLIDWORKS Simulation (first level of certification). This year, such exams were also carried out for the students studying the discipline “Computer-Aided Engineering” and for postgraduate students studying the discipline “Methods of Design and Calculation of Machines and Structures” (both disciplines are taught by Prof. V. Kharzhevskyi). As a result, 12 students (and post graduate students)of our university successfully passed those exams and received SOLIDWORKS Simulation Associate (CSWA-S) certificates: 3 of them also passed professional-level exams and are listed in Table 1, and another 9 students – in Table 2.

Table 2 – Students received CSWA-Simulation certificates

During the spring semester, students of the university were preparing to take the SOLIDWORKS CAD Design Associate (CSWA) certification exams (basic level) – 34 students successfully passed those exams in June and received the appropriate certificates, 3 of them also passed the SOLIDWORKS Simulation exams and are listed in Table 2, and information about the others is shown below in Table 3.

Table 3 – Students passed the SOLIDWORKS CAD Design Associate (CSWA) exam

SOLIDWORKS certificates from Dassault Systèmes have a unique number and a QR code that allows to verify their authenticity, and it is also indicated on the certificate where the exam was held: “Academic exam at Khmelnytskyi National University“. Examples of a SOLIDWORKS certificates are shown below:

On July 2, in the Academic council meeting room (3-401), the awarding ceremony took place. The SOLIDWORKS certificates were awarded to our students by the Rector of our university – Serhii Matiukh. The Head of the university’s SOLIDWORKS Center Viacheslav Kharzhevskyi and the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Transport and Architecture Oleh Polishchuk also gave greeting speeches to the students of the university.

The students were also greeted by Svitlana Pidhaichuk – Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Transport and Architecture, Andrii Martyniuk – Head of the Department of Industrial and Agricultural Engineering, Vitalii Tkachuk, Head of the Department of Manufacturing Engineering, and other educators of the faculty.

This year, compared to previous years, certification is unique: for the first time two students of the university – Mykhailo Sviatushenko (student of ET-21 group) and PhD candidate student Andrii Yerii (GMpas-24-1, who already works as an assistant at the university), successfully passed the highest level of SOLIDWORKS certification exams – expert in 3D modeling (SOLIDWORKS CAD Design Expert – Certified SOLIDWORKS Expert, CSWE).

Both of them already have eight successfully passed SOLIDWORKS exams in different fields of its functionality. Another student, Volodymyr Kharchuk from the ET-21 group (on the right in the photo below), already achieved certificates for seven successfully passed SOLIDWORKS exams and has already received a certificate from Dassault Systèmes that he meets all the necessary pre-requisites to pass CSWE exam.

It is also important to note that information on certified SOLIDWORKS specialists, by different certification levels, is available on the official website of Dassault Systèmes: https://3dexperience.virtualtester.com/#userdir (database of certified users). Moreover, this database includes not only successful academic SOLIDWORKS certifications that were carried out by higher education establishments, but also by commercial users. This way, any potential employer can make sure that a student has demonstrated a sufficient level of knowledge in 3D modeling and engineering analysis in SOLIDWORKS during their studies at university.

It should be also noted that such exams are passed by the students of higher education establishments worldwide, which indicates the appropriate level of preparation of our students.

Khmelnytskyi National University was one of the first higher education establishments in Ukraine who started the usage of SOLIDWORKS not only in the academic process for the training of the students of engineering specialties (since 2006), but also one of the first to receive the status of Academic Certification Provider for SOLIDWORKS (since 2009). Since that time, students of the university have already passed SOLIDWORKS certification exams of all levels of difficulty: Associate (basic level), Professional, including Professional Advanced exams, and also Expert. Totally, our students have already passed 9 types of exams, as shown in the figure below (8 types of exams were passed by our students during the last academic year).

In addition to the above 9 exams, educators of the Faculty of Engineering, Transportation and Architecture of our university have also successfully passed 6 types of the following SOLIDWORKS exams: 1) Simulation Professional (engineering calculations, professional level); 2) Flow Simulation Professional (computational fluid dynamics, professional level); 3) Application Programming Interface, API (programming for SOLIDWORKS); 4) CAM Professional (Computer-Aided Manufacturing); 5) Additive Manufacturing Associate (3D printing technologies); 6) DraftSight (creation of 2D drawings).

An analysis of the global database of certified SOLIDWORKS users (https://3dexperience.virtualtester.com/#userdir), which is available on the Dassault Systémes website, showed that Khmelnytskyi National University has the largest number of students and educators among higher education establishments in Ukraine, for all levels of certification: basic CSWA (Table 4), professional CSWP (Table 5), and expert CSWE (Table 6). The total numbers of successful certifications are also shown in Table 7.

It should be noted, however, that the information in these tables includes only those certified users who indicated the name of their university in the “Company” field during the certification (and did not change this information after graduation). In addition, it is possible for the users to hide information about themselves from this database, and some certified SOLIDWORKS used this option – obviously, it is not technically possible to account “hidden” users.

But anyways, the number of certified users from different higher education establishments of Ukraine that is shown on the official website provides approximate information on how intensively a particular higher education establishment uses modern SOLIDWORKS technologies in the academic process, including SOLIDWORKS certification for their students.

Thus, Tables 4-7 below show the number of students, graduates and educators of the Ukrainian higher education establishments, which are shown in the list of certified SOLIDWORKS users on the official website of Dassault Systèmes (as for July, 2025).

Table 4 – Number of certified SOLIDWORKS users in Ukrainian universities (basic level)

Table 5 – Number of certified SOLIDWORKS users in Ukrainian universities (professional level)

Table 6 – Number of certified SOLIDWORKS users in Ukrainian universities (expert level)

Table 7 – Total number of certified SOLIDWORKS users in Ukrainian universities

In our university SOLIDWORKS is implemented at the Faculty of Engineering, Transport and Architecture in a number of academic courses for the students of different engineering specialties. Thus, the SOLIDWORKS Training and Certification Center in our university (http://solidworks.com.ua) is the most effective among all the higher education establishments in Ukraine since 2010. It is obvious that today a deep knowledge of computer-aided design and engineering analysis technologies is essential for modern specialists in mechanical engineering.

Khmelnytskyi National University is grateful to Dassault Systèmes and AMC Bridge for their support and assistance.

We congratulate our students and wish them further success in their professional activities!