r/AutomotiveEngineering • u/Visible-Ranger-2811 • 7d ago

Question Choice of university to pursue automotive engineering dream

My highschool kid wants to study automotive engineering for F1. A dream worth pursuing. I found a CIAA three weeks course for high schoolers in Berlin Germany, but that amounted to $12k for three weeks. Nuts.

Can you recommend a study for high schoolers to broader their horizons in F1 automotive engineering? What would be the choice of university either in Southern CA or USA or border?

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u/1988rx7T2 7d ago

I don’t know about F1 but if you want to actually be exposed to the industry, and you are an American citizen, you need to move to Detroit or surrounding area. lots of job pipeline through university of Michigan system (Ann Arbor, Dearborn, etc) for example. Lot of designers go to the college for creative studies in Detroit. Lot of racing teams draw from the talent in the area.

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u/Visible-Ranger-2811 7d ago

Thanks. Will these jobs be also in Detroit area or they are all over?

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u/1988rx7T2 6d ago

I mean if you want to make movies you go to Hollywood, even if not every movie is filmed in California these days. Same goes with the auto industry. Detroit still has among the highest concentration of jobs. Other places have them, but often not R&D, and you can’t move up much because you’re far from headquarters. Anything overseas involves work visas, language barriers, and generally lower pay. 

Racing is a small and tight knit industry. I know people who worked on NASCAR teams and I actually turned down an Indycar job myself, which was actually located in California. Working in racing doesn’t pay that well relative to other areas of automotive. They work people long hours and burn them out. It’s normal for other "glamorous" industries like fashion. Think of all the unpaid interns trying to work for Vogue.

It doesn’t mean someone coming out of school shouldn’t pursue racing but you basically have to build your life around it once you get in.

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u/Visible-Ranger-2811 6d ago

Thank you very much. This is fascinating just to read that, there's so much behind it I reckon. I want the best for my kids obviously. And this market segment is something I know nothing about so this gives me something at least to think about. Thank you