<p>Hello,
My name is John and I have consulted college confidential forums for advice in the past but have never posted. Trough searching the forums I have yet to come across a thread that discusses the importance of design teams for an engineering major.
As of right now I am a freshman EE major and am enjoying my coursework so far but I have a few questions regarding design teams. I have showed up for quite a few meetings but I find it tough to squeeze in time for the design team while maintaining my grades.</p>
<p>I was wondering if being a part of a design team will really boost your chances of landing a job. For anyone with experience being apart of a design team at your college do you feel that it greatly increases your chance at landing a job? Also, my college has a mandatory co-op so as for experience a design team will not be my only way of getting experience through college. I was simply wondering the benefits of being part of a design team and how many engineering majors actually participate in the design teams. Lastly, do you feel that being a part of a design team is worth compensating your grades due to the experience you will gain? As of right now I have a 4.0 and I know it will only get harder to maintain that through the years, do you believe a student with design team experience with a lower gpa riding around 3.0 is more appealing than a student with no design team experience with a gpa riding around 3.5-3.8?</p>
<p>I was part of a team in college that was doing both the design of an experimental aircraft and research to get design inputs for that craft. We had NASA funding for the project. I was also a varsity athlete (D3 so not the time commitment that a D1 athlete would have to put in). I actually did better in school when I was busy as I had to schedule my time very carefully to get everything done.</p>
<p>I found that doing the project made the learning that I did in the classroom become more relevant as I could see where that knowledge was used. I got to know several professors real well; talking one on one in their offices many times, going out to lunch, even getting invited into their homes. It made the college experience much more enjoyable. The project even turned into a paid position over the summer and was, in effect, my internship. It also gave me a feeling of what it would be like as career in engineering.</p>
<p>As a manager for a large company, I would always ask college applicants about their project work if they had done any. I would ask about their level of involvement and what they learned from it. Just being a “joiner” and not really participating, but mentioning it on their resumes, actually would lower my opinion. I wanted to hire someone who was going to be an active member of our company’s design teams and had the right kind of work ethic. On the flip side, I never did penalize someone who didn’t have project work in college. However, I would always prefer to hire people with summer internships.</p>
<p>My son was also able to turn his term time project work into what was basically a summer internship. Although it wasn’t paid, it did give him valuable experience that he believed tipped the scales in his favor for his first job out of school.</p>
<p>Bottom line: I would recommend doing some kind of project work.</p>
<p>Thank you very much HPuck for your input. I am considering taking on a larger role as a member of a team but it is a little tough when you are a freshman and don’t really know much. On the other hand, as long as the design team members are friendly enough they an help guide me through what I need to know for a certain project.</p>
<p>I do not have hiring responsibilities, but I would say that it will generally help for few reasons:</p>
<p>1) A design team working for a year or longer more closely replicates the professional experience than does either class or internship. This can help you understand your future job AND provide experience you can refer to in interviews.</p>
<p>2) Working on such teams often provides deep, practical knowledge not otherwise learned in college.</p>
<p>3) Such activities demonstrate a heightened interest in the field, something that employers like to see.</p>
<p>4) You can gain good exposure both with industry (especially if the design is sponsored) as well as for grad school.</p>
<p>Now, you mention a GPA dip, and a small one is not surprising nor unexpected - employers know that a heavily involved student is probably going to carry a lower GPA than a straight academic. But if it is more than ~0.2 you are doing something wrong - if you can pull a 3.8 without the activity, you should be doing no worse than a 3.6 with it. If you drop below that threshold then you should seriously scale back your involvement to keep the grades up.</p>
<p>In my experience, a 3.0 GPA is near the 50th percentile in engineering, and a 3.5 is around the 75th percentile. No activity should make the big an impact.</p>
<p>As a freshman in a project with other upperclassmen, you will probably get your share of grunt work. But, as you go on, you become more senior in the project and the better work assignments will come. Kind of like starting your career at a large engineering company!!!</p>
<p>A dip in GPA will probably occur whether one does a project or not. First term freshman year is usually viewed by the college as a transition time and they try not to overwhelm the freshmen. Also, the school is trying to get everyone up to the same level and so the better prepared freshmen will find the work much easier. The pace will usually pick up second term. Sophomore year starts to introduce the real beginning concepts in engineering and this is where some people start to get a little lost and more effort is needed to keep up. Some people will actually see a rise in their GPA in their junior and senior year as the concepts they are learning start to meld into a true understanding of the subject matter.</p>
<p>It is very hard to maintain a 4.0 (or even nearly so) GPA thru your entire college degree. I would consider anything at or above a 3.8 or so to be excellent. A 3.4 or higher is still very good. Generally, my company would reject any college applicant below a 3.0 as we had so many applicants that were above that.</p>
<p>I was part of IEEE SouthEastcon Robotics competition. </p>
<p>Yes, it will help you with employment however HPuck35 is right you don’t want to be a “joiner” we had that guy in our group. An employer will expect you to explain your design The documentation for the design is very important for reference during the job interview. </p>
<p>Usually employers want to know </p>
<p>. GPA
. Course Work (Projects)
. Co-ops/internships
. Design projects with a team</p>