2nd year student looking for some guidance

[Adam S]

Hey everyone!

I'm currently in my second year of Mech. Engineering at the University of Manitoba and was just looking through the "job offer" section. I'm pretty sure that I'll be doing a Masters Degree right after my bachelors, but other than getting good grades in school, what do you guys recommend I focus on and get involved in to land myself one of those "dream jobs" a couple years down the road?

Thanks for your help! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Mike Macie]

Originally posted by Adam S:
Hey everyone!

I'm currently in my second year of Mech. Engineering at the University of Manitoba and was just looking through the "job offer" section. I'm pretty sure that I'll be doing a Masters Degree right after my bachelors, but other than getting good grades in school, what do you guys recommend I focus on and get involved in to land myself one of those "dream jobs" a couple years down the road?

Thanks for your help! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Try to get some some work experience. Like an internship or if your school has a co-op program. Don't just rely on fsae for your engineering experience.

[Adam S]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Yeah, I'm also involved in the local sports car club and voulenteer at some track days. I need to get some more technical engineering under my belt so I'll keep my eye out for some summer internships.

If anyone else has some input, I'd be glad to hear it.

[J.R.]

My advice would be never to do anything just for a resume. Do what you enjoy, and you'll get the job you deserve. If you spend your college years just doing stuff so that it "looks good" you may or may not get your "dream job". And if you spent all that time doing stuff just for a job, you may find that you don't like the job you get anyways. Right now it's really tough to find any job, let alone one in MotorSports anyways. Most of us would love to work for a race team, or something MotorSports related, but it really comes down to the competitiveness of these jobs. If you have what it takes, in terms of desire and knowledge, that will show through to employers. So, just have fun with school and don't worry about a job till you have to http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif That's why I'm going to grad school, so I don't have to worry about growing up yet! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Adam S]

Heh, I like your take on life J.R. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_razz.gif

I'm just looking into some summer internships so I can get a better understanding of what exact field I want to get into to help narrow down my choices.

Again, thanks for your input! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Alan]

For most of these "Dream Jobs" employers are looking for a particular skill set or background. What they are looking for is going to vary from team to team and person to person. You'll never know ahead of time what they are looking for. So you can't really prepare for it with specifics. Just keep doing what is interesting to you and eventually you'll get good at it. If this is something that will help you get your dream job, cool. If not, oh well.

I will say race teams tend to look for people with racing experience, but every once in a while they hire outside the industry, especially for the shop based jobs.