My Time in FSAE: 4.5 Years, 4500+ Hours

Formula SAE is more than a class, a team, or club, it is a studio course in engineering, manufacturing, fundraising, and leadership. Our competition is a playground for the creative, a proving ground for the naïve, and between teams, a battleground for the competitive. I firmly believe I have learned more in this program than any academic program, due to the hands-on nature, the transfer of knowledge between generations, and simply getting something wrong enough times to figure out how to do it right.

The first lesson that being part of this team teaches is to be resourceful. Most of us come into this team with little or no applicable knowledge, and facing a complex problem that no class has taught you how to solve can be daunting. Luckily each new member is supported by more experienced teammates and alumni they can lean on for guidance. By coupling the team’s collective knowledge with time spent devotedly doing research, anyone can become a specialist at their task. 

The second lesson is how to bring an idea to life. Most of our ideas start on the back of a napkin, the column of a notebook, or the whiteboard of a meeting room, and the process of developing them into a part on the racecar is magical. From concept to creation, the team works on every new idea collectively. And it is our collective knowledge of design, simulation, manufacturing and fundraising can realize almost any feasible idea. With few exceptions, almost none of our new members join this team with experience in engineering or design, and almost all leave confident, capable engineers. 

The third lesson is just how hard you can work, and the quality of work you are capable of completing. Every grueling night of design and manufacturing comes alongside an equally difficult day in the classroom. To be a part of this team requires a level of dedication and working at a pace many of us have never before experienced. And while you often miss it while it's happening, at the end of the year when you reflect back on all that we accomplished in such a short time span, it teaches you just how much an effective team can accomplish; and after that few projects are frightening. 

And the fourth, and most important lesson, is how to be a team. How to communicate, compromise, and collaborate with a diverse group of people who have different knowledge, skills, and abilities, and whom each want to contribute. No part on this car is designed solely to maximize it’s characteristics, but rather to build the best cohesive car we can. We are absolutely like this racecar, comprised of  hundreds of intricate parts, all working harmoniously together, but take one away and you no longer have a functioning car. 

And what I’ve taken from all of this is that when you work with as dedicated, as loyal, and as brilliant people as I am proud to, any dream can be realized