🛠️ Projects > Grades This may seem counterintuitive for a lot of students, especially people that just started college. Sure, classes do teach you a lot of the fundamentals, but working on actual projects is what reinforces your learning because you SEE how it translates to REAL WORLD. Make sure your contributions are MEANINGFUL. • Don’t say: “I helped glue the wing together.” (Low value, anyone can do it). • Do say: “I sized internal wing structures using beam-bending equations to meet stiffness requirements within balsa wood manufacturing constraints. I iterated through 3 prototypes to find the optimal strength-to-weight ratio.” 2. 🏎️ Join a Club! Most universities will have engineering clubs like formula SAE, Rocketry clubs, Aviation clubs, Solar car clubs. These clubs will usually have a lot of resources like money, equipment, and most importantly, mentorship from upperclassmen. 3. 🧠 Master the Fundamentals Companies like SpaceX aren’t looking for mastery, they’re looking for potential. What they want is somebody with a strong technical foundation and knows how to rapidly apply that foundation to learn new concepts. • Structures: Beam-bending equations. • Fluids: Basic pipe flow and Bernoulli. • Electrical: Power equations and circuit analysis. Show that you have a strong first-principles understanding and you are eager to learn. 4. 📊 It’s a Numbers Game Even as a Stanford Aero student, I sent 130+ applications to land 5 offers. Don’t take “no” personally. Most qualified people get skipped—just keep firing. • Pro Tip: Use LLMs. Train a model on your resume and project notes to generate tailored cover letters and resume bullets in seconds. 5. ✉️ Cold Email! Sometimes the “Apply” button is a black hole. I got all my SpaceX interviews by cold-emailing engineers. Take initiative, find their contact, and show them your work directly. 6. 🤝 Rely on Upperclassmen They’ve been through the fire. Use their connections and their experience to skip the common mistakes #engineeringstudent #futureengineer #aerospaceengineering #stemstudent #internship