<p>So I was wondering how many of you guys were part of Design Teams, such as Formula SAE, when you were doing engineering.</p>
<p>Currently, I'm a sophomore in EE at a Canadian University (the largest one in my province). So, I was thinking of joining a Design Team; however, I don't see how to find the time in my hectic engineering schedule (taking 6 courses per semester which is the norm in Canada).</p>
<p>I talked to some of the guys in the teams to see how they make time, and most of them are usually taking 4-5 courses per semester instead.</p>
<p>I also commute to school each day, which takes up about 1.5 hours. The thing I'm most afraid of is joining the team, and not having enough time to properly contribute to the group.</p>
<p>So basically, I was wondering how you guys made time to do these things. Did you sacrifice your GPA or did you take a year longer to graduate? Or are you all very brilliant and good at time management to get through all these without much trouble?</p>
<p>My first question is “How do other students, most of whom have the normal schedule and some with even worse schedules, fit the design team in?”.
Them taking 4-5 course a semester instead makes is sound like their participation in the design team is a course. Is this not possible for you?</p>
<p>And I spend about 1 hour a day commuting to/from school. Its fairly normal for me to leave the house at 8:30am and come home at 10 pm. </p>
<p>And this sounds obvious, but there are only 24 hours in a day. People who are ambitious NEVER have enough time to do all of it. If you’re too busy for the design team, don’t do the design team.
Or maybe your grades aren’t the most important thing in the world. There are people who get into top PhD programs with below 3.0 GPAs because their work/research is so incredible.</p>
<p>There’s always time for something besides classes. Find something less important to you and sacrifice that to free up some time. </p>
<p>I was involved in the ASCE/AISC Steel Bridge competition, worked a part time job and took 18 credits a semester during my senior year. It’s do-able. Didn’t leave much time for other things, but I joined the competition because I enjoyed working on it.</p>