Secondary education is a chance to increase a person’s independence, professionalism, and creativity. Extra-curricular organizations have the ability to inhibit or catalyze these characteristics depending on their structure. In these organizations is the key to creating a well-rounded student an emphasis on individual responsibility? This study aims to highlight the effects different structural elements have on the students and their project’s respective successes or failures. In order to accomplish this an original poll was administered to several undergraduate research and design groups during the spring semester of 2016 that allowed the students to self-report on their growth. This study then analyzed the results and offered its criticisms. The preliminary results show that an organization that allows students to be responsible for the tasks they complete leads to more than 75 percent of those students reporting that their communication, time-management, and leadership skills have grown due to the project.