For the love..

[Curious1]

I have currently spent a few years on an fsae team, and for fairness, will spare some details. I also created this profile to protect the team's identity, as my regular log-in would be quite revealing. The nature of this post is over a recent thought I have had bouncing around. I attended this school in the beginning to be part of this program, with hopes that it would better my chances of landing a career in motor sports. Recently, I realized that only one other teammate and I had our hearts set on pursuing this particular career path. My first question is whether or not this is common across all teams. Am I lucky to have at least one other to share my passion? We have a team of over 25 active members and two express an open love of race cars.

Secondly, pending your responses, I have been considering the possibility of transferring to a school where more people share this passion. Therefore, my question is, should I continue to pour my heart and soul into the program at this school and lead this team to it's maximum potential, or consider transferring to a program where more members whole heartedly seek knowledge beyond grade and scores?

To wrap this up, don't assume that our team is weak and I want to leave for this reason. I have great admiration for my teammates, advisors, and their skills as engineers and friends, but it is the simple idea of being surrounded with those of similar passions that has become appealing. Does this team exist out there? Is your team what I am looking for? Am I the only one seeking such a program? I understand this predicament will be one that we all face for the rest of our professional careers, but I do not need a place to practice only people skills, I need a place to practice people and racecar skills at the same time, to the best of my abilities. I appreciate all honesty in response to this rant.

[Curious1]

I have currently spent a few years on an fsae team, and for fairness, will spare some details. I also created this profile to protect the team's identity, as my regular log-in would be quite revealing. The nature of this post is over a recent thought I have had bouncing around. I attended this school in the beginning to be part of this program, with hopes that it would better my chances of landing a career in motor sports. Recently, I realized that only one other teammate and I had our hearts set on pursuing this particular career path. My first question is whether or not this is common across all teams. Am I lucky to have at least one other to share my passion? We have a team of over 25 active members and two express an open love of race cars.

Secondly, pending your responses, I have been considering the possibility of transferring to a school where more people share this passion. Therefore, my question is, should I continue to pour my heart and soul into the program at this school and lead this team to it's maximum potential, or consider transferring to a program where more members whole heartedly seek knowledge beyond grade and scores?

To wrap this up, don't assume that our team is weak and I want to leave for this reason. I have great admiration for my teammates, advisors, and their skills as engineers and friends, but it is the simple idea of being surrounded with those of similar passions that has become appealing. Does this team exist out there? Is your team what I am looking for? Am I the only one seeking such a program? I understand this predicament will be one that we all face for the rest of our professional careers, but I do not need a place to practice only people skills, I need a place to practice people and racecar skills at the same time, to the best of my abilities. I appreciate all honesty in response to this rant.

[exFSAE]

I graduated and am an FSAE alum. At my school on my senior design team there were 2 of us with a true interest in motorsports. In the 3 years I was on the team, 5 people hired into automotive jobs. Our school isn't known at all for anything vehicle-related, we have no automotive or motorsports classes, etc.

I had similar thoughts at times being very jealous and in awe of some of the schools out there with serious programs and very professional, motivated teams. However, I have a ton of school pride and loved going there for 4 years. I was adamant on doing the absolute best we could with what limited resources were available to us. Much greater sense of pride and accomplishment and ability to hopefully be remembered as someone who was passionate about what they were doing and brought the program to the next level.

I'd reccomend, especially as you've got a couple years in this school already, to stick around. When the time comes, hire into something automotive or motorsports related for the experience of being around that kinda thing at the pro level with people who really know their stuff. I felt the same way and went ahead and took that career path and am quite happy now.

[mtg]

FSAE wasn't created as a training grounds for motorsports engineering.

It was created as a training grounds to create good engineers.

So, I don't think it matters that most of your team doesn't really care about working in motorsports, as long as they share your passion to succeed in FSAE- that's all that matters. When I was at UMR, I'd say most of the people there didn't have any aspirations of working for race teams, yet we always had a good crew that was committed to succeeding at competition.

FSAE is really a competition of who can best define the problem, set goals for their team, most efficiently direct their resources towards those goals, and follow through to make sure it all goes as close to plan as possible. It doesn't matter what you're interests are to follow the above path.

I wouldn't switch schools to be on a team where more people wanted to work in racing. Stay where you are and make the biggest positive impact you can while you're there.

[Hot Rod JayRad]

Just to echo what these guys have been saying...

Think long and hard about transferring just to find people passionate about motorsports. Remember that as soon as you get a job in motorsports, you will be surrounded by those people. I would hope that you have many other factors influencing your decision (student body, professors, classes, fsae support, etc).

Good luck!

[Neil S]

I don't know if I agree completely with Matt's statement about UMR not having many people with aspirations of working in the racing industry. I think that most of the more dedicated team members have aspirations to work in the race industry in some aspect.

[Alan]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I attended this school in the beginning to be part of this program, with hopes that it would better my chances of landing a career in motor sports. Recently, I realized that only one other teammate and I had our hearts set on pursuing this particular career path. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Regardless of the school you are with, the fact that you are doing FSAE at all will increase your chances of landing a job in motorsport. Being surrounded by a bunch of people with a similar goal is not going to affect that. Teams hire people for a lot of different reasons, but I don't think they will care whether or not you came from a school with a motorsports emphasis.

[Kevin Hayward]

In the 5 years I spent at UWA you can count the people who entered a career in motorsport on one hand. This was partly due to opportunities, but mostly due to the fact that most of the guys and girls were more interested in other engineering arenas. Some fantastic engineers came out of the program.

Kev

[mjdavidson]

My school is percieved to be a very motorsports oriented program. The way this program is structured you would presume that all of the students involved in the motorsports program at our school seek a job in motorsports after college. That doesn't mean we have an abundance of dedicated FSAE team members as you might expect.

A majority of our members do love motorsports, and alot of alumni have motorsports careers. The Formula team does see some benefits from that, but our record shows that that doesn't translate to FSAE success.

[mtg]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Neil S:
I don't know if I agree completely with Matt's statement about UMR not having many people with aspirations of working in the racing industry. I think that most of the more dedicated team members have aspirations to work in the race industry in some aspect. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Remember Neil, I graduated a couple years ago. Back then, there were only a couple people that pursued jobs in racing. Apparently it is different now.

[Erich Ohlde]

I'm going on my fifth year with the program here, In that time only one FSAE alum has gone on to a motorsports job. There are a few that wouldn't mind having a job in motorsports but are more than happy working for Black and Veatch, etc. I personally do want to work in motorsports and I am taking steps to ensure that I get there. I'm going to say that it is very common for only two people out of a team of twenty or so to want to get into motorsports.

[LU-Bolton]

Since our team's start in 1994, there have been three alumni who have made it to race teams and one who works for a manufacturer of race parts. The three who got onto race teams ended up in NASCAR, go figure. The thought of spending months designing a drive peg lured them away from F1(seriously).

Many of my team members have wanted to enter motorsports, me being probably the most determined. However, in my search I learned a few things.
First, there aren't many opportunities. Most teams only have a handful of track engineers, the rest being mechanics. A lot of people want to be a part of this, so it's difficult to get into without the right connections.
Second, nowadays with race teams there are only so many things you can contribute with. As a structures/suspension guy, I am kind of left out in the cold because few race teams need to design a chassis or their own parts. And there's usually only one or two shock and/or vehicle dynamics guys on a team.
Third, you have to travel a lot and the money from what I've found isn't all that good.

Now don't get me wrong, there are tons of positive things that can come out of working in motorsports and race teams. Working at Limerock for me was awesome, hanging out at a track everyday. I will never forget it. But, the above few are some reasons why college kids aren't so interested in actually making it a career. So don't feel left out and transfer quite yet. Just work your but off, and above all get out there and make some connections at the track.

As for me, the realizations came near the end of senior year. It hurt because I thought I wanted a motorsports career. But, it turns out that motorsports wasn't actually what I was best at or what I wanted. Worked out for me. Now I work for Burt Rutan building one of a kind spaceships and prototypes. Good luck, keep your head up. Don't get discouraged. You'll find your way.

[Mike Cook]

If you go to a school with more dedicated people, I would think there would be more competition, and consequently be more difficult to get a job doing what you want to do (racing). Stay where you are at. In the end, all that really matters is your own performance, I think. When ever I had been interview or seen other people be interviewed for motorsports jobs, the fsae team record has not come up, really just their own skills and strengths come up.

That said its always fun to be on a super successful team and surround your self with people who share your same interests. But like someone else mentioned, after getting into pro racing, everyone shares the same interest and sometimes it gets rather old.

Winning a FSAE championship (while would be nice) is not really a goal of mine. Rather, FSAE was a step to getting to my ultimate goal which is winning a professional american racing series championship.

[Charlie]

To be blunt (but no offense intended), just get over it. Nothing you can do will make everyone have your interests. FSAE is not filtered by interest but by people willing to spend the time to complete the project. In fact, I'd prefer a hard worker on my team versus someone who is full of 'passion for race cars.'

Keep working towards your goal if that's what you really want to do. Don't worry about having a circle of like-minded people around, it's an unlikely scenario.

Don't be surprised if you get into motorsports and find yourself working with people that aren't passionate about it.

[VFR750R]

Charlies post reminded me of something about many Cornell teams of the past. Not everyone on the team is even a mechanical engineer. We had kids majoring in business, physics, economics, electrical engineering, operations research, industrial and labor relations, and certainatly others. Not everyone was planning on a motorsports job, or even an automotive job after college. But most were hard workers that were dedicated to the car. There were some that didn't even want to drive the car, but they all wanted it to succeed.

[Joy Pathak]

On my universities current FSAE team, I am pretty sure 95% of the team wishes to work in the motorsport industry. Their passion for it is mind blowing. Some of them are currently doing co-op at racing companies (Roush... and so on). I personally love everything there is to do with race car aerodynamics. But will I consider a career in motorsports? I am not too sure baout that. The greatest feeling for me was when I was told I made the FSAE team(it is very competitive to make the FSAE team here). But i am not completely certain of pursuing a career in the motorsports.

There will be many who donot want to be in motorsports after graduation but will pour their heart into it for their FSAE subsystem and team.

Passion is always a plus... but its the hardworkers and people who are dedicated and committed that you want to be with anyways.

[drivetrainUW-Platt]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by VFR750R:
Charlies post reminded me of something about many Cornell teams of the past. Not everyone on the team is even a mechanical engineer. We had kids majoring in business, physics, economics, electrical engineering, operations research, industrial and labor relations, and certainatly others. Not everyone was planning on a motorsports job, or even an automotive job after college. But most were hard workers that were dedicated to the car. There were some that didn't even want to drive the car, but they all wanted it to succeed. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

There is absolutely nothing wrong with "off major" team members. We and many other teams are begging to get electrical engineers, business people to write those dreaded reports etc....
Takes all kinds to fill all the requirements of a winning FSAE car, as I am sure you guys know since you have won a few times.

For us other teams, we take 5-10 mechanical engineers and struggle to write reports and give presentations.

[samphlett]

I know many people who have moved on from a regular automotive engineering (be it OEM, Tier 1 or Consulting) job into motorsports. And FSAE is a great foot in the door to any automotive engineering job.

[trippjm]

I am presently aware of four Auburn alums working in the motorsports/OEM automotive industry. As far as I know, only two of those were active on the FSAE team in any capacity. Only five or so members of our team are really serious about pursuing a racing/automotive specific career; others seem content with any engineering career path (and thus use the team as a way of improving upon and developing vital engineering skills that cannot be taught in the classroom), or don't yet know. I like the variety, personally. If you're with a strong, competent team and at a decent university, don't transfer. Focus on your success within FSAE and school, and let that open your doors.

[flavorPacket]

It's a similar environment at my school. There are maybe 3-4 guys (out of 15 or so) who really want to work in racing, and maybe 50% of them will end up doing so. But, we've recently had a good string of hires (F1, big NASCAR team, 2 ALMS/LeMans factory teams, UK gearbox/engine supplier), so that keeps people focused.