In this opening session of the Academic Landscape learning path, landscape architect and instructor Eric Gilby tours the Vectorworks working environment. You'll learn how to set your workspace to Landmark, what each menu does, and how to find answers using the "What's This" tool, Vectorworks Help, and the AI Assistant. Eric also orients you to the Basic tool palette, the industry-specific tool sets, and the Attributes, Object Info, and Navigation palettes. The second half is hands-on practice with general 2D drawing tools — lines, rectangles, circles, ellipses, arcs, polylines, and polygons — plus editing commands like Reshape, Clip Surface, trim, fillet, offset, and move by points, along with fills, gradients, line weights, and opacity. By the end you'll be comfortable navigating the interface, drawing precisely, and modifying geometry, setting the foundation for the landscape-specific workflows ahead.