<story><title>Aerospace companies find engineers at a college race-car competition</title><url>http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-formula-sae-recruiting-20170618-story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>onesun</author><text>I was heavily involved in solar car racing during college, so much so that my grades suffered because of it. But for the most part that didn&amp;#x27;t matter. Most recruiters I spoke to ended up being much more interested in the stories I could tell about all the challenges we had as a team and the novel solutions we invented to overcome them. I knew that if I talked to a recruiter and they only focused on my GPA, then that was a good sign I didn&amp;#x27;t want to work there. After my first job, GPA became irrelevant. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t change a thing. Fifteen years later, I still count my teammates as some of my best friends.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>humanrebar</author><text>This is partly why we should be more open to non traditional educations. I don&amp;#x27;t see why someone needs an entire four year degree to be able to contribute to these kinds of engineering problems. There are certainly &amp;quot;university level&amp;quot; subjects that need to be covered, but that could easily be taken as needed. Or in a more condensed form.</text></comment>
<story><title>Aerospace companies find engineers at a college race-car competition</title><url>http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-formula-sae-recruiting-20170618-story.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>onesun</author><text>I was heavily involved in solar car racing during college, so much so that my grades suffered because of it. But for the most part that didn&amp;#x27;t matter. Most recruiters I spoke to ended up being much more interested in the stories I could tell about all the challenges we had as a team and the novel solutions we invented to overcome them. I knew that if I talked to a recruiter and they only focused on my GPA, then that was a good sign I didn&amp;#x27;t want to work there. After my first job, GPA became irrelevant. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t change a thing. Fifteen years later, I still count my teammates as some of my best friends.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>isatty</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m heavily involved in one of the AUVSI&amp;#x27;s autonomous vehicle competitions where recruiters from SpaceX etc show up frequently. I&amp;#x27;m a senior now and my grades have suffered as well. I wouldn&amp;#x27;t say it was purely because of the competition - but I&amp;#x27;ve a similar experience to yours where recruiters love stories from the competition and about how we managed to achieve our goals. I&amp;#x27;ve learnt a LOT of stuff that I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have managed to in class.&lt;p&gt;Similar to you, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t change a thing.</text></comment>