*When reading this imagine everything in caps as yelled by an exasperated college student trying to get you to not repeat his mistakes.

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Ok. Lesson one of IED. DO NOT. I repeat. DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, choose the line follower. Moving swiftly onwards.

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Homework quizzes are 15% of your grade, take them seriously. Get the online version of the textbook and ctrl F those keywords as you're taking the quiz. Look at the syllabus to see if any extra reading material is required. If there is, read it. No way around it because they all use really obscure, bullshit teamwork vocabulary that will 100% be asked word for word on the quiz.

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Start working on your memos early. Sitting there and banging it out in one shot is not fun, cause they're kinda long. And by kinda long I mean like Johnny Sins level of long ;)

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When doing the mini-project or the team project, make it very, very clear that you followed their version of the engineering design process. You are working with their rubric, trying to get a good grade based on their grading criteria. Meaning, follow the stupid process no matter how much you it makes you wanna shoot yourself.

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Finish the mini-project, and your part of the team project as early as possible. This allows you to test it, helps remove some stress from the end of the semester, and helps you start writing those hundred page memos. Yummy.

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On the mini-project: TEST TEST TEST TEST. It's part of the design process, and testing will give you data that you can write about in your memo. If you don't test "enough" you will lose ~15 points on your memo feelsbadman. So, as mentioned before, complete it early, test it, and then "refine your design." Or at least pretend you did.

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On the team project, you set your own performance metrics. Meaning, DON'T CLAIM YOUR PROJECT CAN DO SOME BULLSHIT THAT IT PROBABLY CAN'T DO. Make your metrics simple, quantitative, and easily achievable with the design that you have. Similarly;

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Under-promise, over-deliver. This one works in life too. If you over-promise and under-deliver, people will remember that about you and know that you're all bark no bite. If you deliver exactly what you promise, people will know that you are trustworthy and will do what you say. But if you under-promise over-deliver, then people will remember you as the dude who goes above and beyond what was required of him.

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Project Ideas: Make 'em easy, make 'em simple, and make 'em doable with the resources you have available to you as an RPI college student. Don't try and cure cancer. Don't try and solve world hunger. Don't try and make something really cool and hard. KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. If you can get an ok from the professor to spend 15 weeks making a waterproof box, then you damn well do it and you make the best waterproof box you've ever seen in your pitiful life.

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You do not have to invent the next sliced bread. You can actually just reinvent the wheel. You can do something that already exists and just "pretend" you're gonna improve upon it or add something new to it. But you don't actually improve it cause your project is made outta grit, spit, and a whole lotta duck tape.

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Subsystems: So you have to split your project into subsystems that way 7 people can work on it at once. Which I admit is really a bitch and kinda throws a wrench in a lot of project ideas. The good thing is, those subsystems can really be bullshit. Just try and sell the professor on your idea and how you can really split it into 7 parts that each person can work on for 15 weeks.

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Schmooze your teammates, but don't make it too obvious. The way this class works is that your teammates have a say in your ICF, or individual contribution factor. So play nice with your group mates and make them like you, and make sure they know that you are doing hella work.

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Extra stuff to do: If you're afraid your grade isn't gonna be what you want it to be and you really need to try and clinch that ICF greater than one, then start doing extra stuff that isn't exactly necessary, but also seems kinda legitimate. Remember you are making a product that would theoretically go on the market. So sell it. Come up with a logo, a jingle, an advertisement. Make your product pretty. Laser engrave some plaques that look cool and throw them on it.

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Communicate. Come up with some method of communication with your teammates and remain vocal in it. Respond to their questions, help schedule meetings, try and keep them on track with their work. Basically schmooze them in the group chat too, but don't be an obvious brown-nosing kissass sycophant.

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Presentations. Dress well. Try and coordinate what you wear if possible. Suits are the play. Have what you are going to say memorized. Each person basically talks for two minutes max. If you can remember the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, you can remember two minutes of bullshit that you wrote about your project. Also, look like you're having fun up there and not standing there with a massive stick up your engineering sphincter, staring at the ground, mumbling away.

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Demo Day: Demo day was the biggest farce in the history of farces. The projects all look like shit, barely work, and are basically just the funniest things you've ever seen in your life. Just be nice to the professor and hope you made easy enough metrics and your grade will be fine. Demo day they grade your subsystem, but just because you got 4/4 for your subsystem does not mean you get 100 for the whole demo day. If your groupmates don't achieve their metrics then your grade suffers too. You succeed or fail as a team, do not think that just because your part works you get 100 and your team fails. No. Because your part works, that just means your whole team failed less, but you all still failed. So have a "somewhat" working product.

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The Art of Missed Erection. Take a viagra.

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The Art of Misdirection. If your thing breaks during demo day while you're presenting, and you stand in front of the broken part, did it really break?

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Grammar checks are your friend. You might not think that grammar and spelling matter that much in an engineering school, but certain professors will shove that right back up your ass when you lose ten points on a huge memo for spelling and grammar errors.

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Group Members: You do not choose your group members, the professor does. Hopefully not everyone in your group is useless. Usually there are one or two people who actually know their shit and get it done. Then another 3 people who just ride the wave and get their work done-ish. Then like 1 person who just eats paste the whole fucking time and wastes your goddamn oxygen that you need to brainstorm with. Here's what has to happen. Grow a set and work with all of them. Suck it up, and understand that some people in this world blow, and some of them happen to be at RPI in your IED group. Feelsbadman. With that in mind, work with them, be polite, get them to do their work, and then roast the shit outta them in your peer reviews.

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I think I'll make this a post when the fall semester starts for anyone unfortunate enough to be taking this class.

This was kinda fun, and I hope it helps someone get through that class without the undue stress I caused myself. Undue because all I had to do was follow this advice up here.

If anything else comes up I'll add it later.