Okay, if you are in your initial days of college and eager to explore engineering, thought of working with new technologies, you won't be able to do so in India, especially in tier 3 colleges.
You'll have boring subjects to read and exams to write while hoping for a good CGPA.
Hmmmm, then how do you add that extra ingredient, in college itself, to get your hands on different fields and explore.... The simple answer is to join a technical club at your college and begin exploring.
You might be thinking about this question.Always be eager to learn new things.
"Who are you to tell all of this?"
Experience, I just spent a year in a technical club called Aeroclub, which is one of my college's oldest clubs.
What did I learn in Club over the course of a year?
AEROCLUB:-As the name implies, the club is all about UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles), and I have a really good hand on those, and also made one.
I was given the opportunity to work in a team of five to build a UAV (micro drone)
I learned a lot of things (technically) here, such as how to choose a Flight Controller(FC) , frame, motors, propellers, and so on, which is essentially a research phase. Soon after, we built a drone from the ground up.
There is a lot to learn while building a drone, we actually spent the majority of our time calibrating the FC and testing the drone, here is the testing photo.
So seeing a drone fly, which took a lot of time and effort to build, will be a blissful moment for everyone on the team.
The best way to learn is to teach
Outreach Program
I had the opportunity to explain about UAV's to a group of 40 to 50 students from two nearby schools. The interaction with school students, as well as their candid questions about the topic, brought me great joy.
C classes
Here, with my other two friends, we used to teach C language basics to the club's core committee members regularly.
Made an application to take total working hours in the club
I learned a lot of things there, such as how to use Google Sheet Automation (learn about Google Apps script) and how to use MIT App Inventor.
The app was used to do the following:
1)verify the member by scanning the QR code
2)After the user is verified, the in time and out time will be updated in Google Sheets.
It wasn't used much as people forgot to scan the code
Participated in SAE Aerothon 2021 - Virtual Aerodesign Contest
We as a team of 7 members, participated in Aerothon contest and secured 16th position.
Social media handling
I used to edit videos (10+) for Aeroclub (creativity), which you can see on their Instagram handle, and I had the opportunity to make Instagram threads, which you can see here 👉🏻 Link.
Designed ID cards and Boarding pass for club members.
Other things I learned are listed below
- Team work
- Overcame my stage fear
- Improved my communication skills
- Met like minded people
- etc...
Conclusion
If you want to stand out in college and do something with your free time, join clubs or communities and contribute and learn from them.
Thank you for sticking with me until the end.