[elefanten]

Your answer seems given in bad faith, but it's worth answering anyway.

There are many other things you learn and things you can go on to do as [engineering student] at [university]. Doing a [resume-boosting challenge] is one small part of your universe.

On the other hand, when you are entering a special program for weapons development and giving press releases about how long you've been studying about guns... your intentions and the expectations for you are very different.