Your Fast Track to an Engineering Career: FSAE EV
What is the one thing all employers want from students, but students struggle to obtain? Experience.
When applying to entry-level internships or jobs, it is common to see employers asking for one to two years of related experience. When seeing this, most students are confused; they think, “How am I supposed to gain experience if entry-level positions require experience?”
For engineering students, there is a solution: your university’s Formula SAE Electric (FSAE EV) club.
What Makes a College Club Great?
With all of the assignments and schedules competing for your time in college, it’s important to determine what will make a club membership worthwhile for you. For engineering students, this means opportunities to apply course concepts to physical designs and develop leadership skills by managing real budgets and deadlines. A great club also allows students to collaborate with peers from other disciplines, like business and marketing, and validate design decisions through testing and professional feedback.
If a club can meet these requirements, students will gain the necessary skills and experience to contribute meaningful work in their first technical job. Luckily for engineering students, FSAE EV clubs meet all these requirements.
Real Industry Experience
An FSAE EV club feels more like a fast-paced startup than a school club. The competition involves designing, manufacturing, and presenting a product every year: an open-wheel electric race car that can reach speeds close to 100 miles per hour. This means members and leads work at all hours to achieve the club’s goals.
At SDSU, our goal is to compete in every dynamic event at the competition, a first for our club. This requires late nights, early mornings, and weekend test days from the start of summer until the end of the school year. Of course, this level of commitment is not for everyone.
The great thing is that these clubs are what you make of them. If you only want to show up for a couple of hours each week, that is all you have to do. You won’t get the same amount of experience compared to someone who shows up every day, but that is how the industry works.
Competitions and Networking
The annual competition is a great event for all students involved. It gives clubs the opportunity to compete against one another and let their hard work speak for itself on the racetrack. It is also one of the best networking events of the year.
More than one hundred teams show up, with each team typically having thirty members at the competition. That means roughly three thousand like-minded, driven, and talented students are all in the same place for a week. This is where you can build your network, learn from your peers, and make meaningful connections.
Many industry professionals also show up as judges or guests. This makes it a great place to meet engineers from top companies. You might even land an internship or job.
Preparing for the Future
For students looking to turn ideas into reality, there is no comparison to an FSAE EV club. It provides the knowledge, the experience, and the network to launch you into the next stage of your career.
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