Making the Most of Your Projects

A road map:

In semester I (assuming they keep the same format) you'll be faced with an initial project that shallowly addresses the framework of bringing a medical device to market. In general, you'll cover design, market analysis, and lightly touch on regulatory, clinical and perhaps reimbursement strategies.

In semester II & III, you'll do a significantly more involved project where you'll do everything you did before but in much more detail. You'll find that you need to talk to actual professionals in the field to get the answers you need and make use of the many resources you've been exposed to in the previous semester.

There is a critical bit of advice to be had approaching these two projects. It goes thus:

You should try to choose a project that somehow relates to what you think you want to do for a job. 

Although you talk to a decent number of professionals as they come as guest speakers to your class, you have the opportunity to speak to many more as you work on your project. In fact, you'll have to in order to make your project work. So as soon as you know what your project is, start looking for people in the field that are working on similar stuff by reading papers and asking around for local experts. This is the perfect opportunity to network in your field of interest.

The phrase "I'm a student at Georgia Tech" can open a lot of doors that would otherwise be closed to you. However, always consider who you are talking to and ask yourself, "What's in it for them?" before you approach them. Do so because that's exactly what they are asking themselves.

This also means talking to your fellow classmates about what they want to do as early as possible. Chances are, you don't already have an idea for a project, but they might. It doesn't have to be a genius idea. The more important thing is exposure to the informational space and the professionals that might lead you to a job.

If you don't know what area you want to enter talk to your classmates as much as you can about what they want to do. This can give you an idea of what's available. You really need to figure out what genuinely interests you as soon as possible. If you can't seem to figure it out, jump on somebody's team that you feel you can contribute to and fake it. Fake it like crazy! This sounds stupid, but when you really pour yourself into something, you can form that genuine interest. It may only be for a very specific part of the task, but that's a great start. You can get hired for doing one part very well, but you have to show development in that area.

Good luck.