Re: FIRST Alumni: How's College Going?
 

I graduated from FRC team 2903 in 2011 and then attended Illinois Institute of Technology. I majored in physics education and graduated with my degree and teaching license in May. While at Illinois Tech, I was heavily involved in two extracurriculars: Our collegiate robotics team and our student newspaper. I held an internship at a science museum for 4 years. I've also been involved in some way with the majority of Chicago FTC and FRC events since I moved here.

I did mentor for two seasons while I was in college. Myself and a friend started FRC 4551, which was a community team in the near southwest side of Chicago. It was a lot of fun, but it was stressful to run a team where the two primary mentors were college students; we ran out of funding after our second year and folded.

We're happy that, during the time the team existed, we had a 50% match win percentage, won rookie highest seed, had a 50:50 male:female population, and all of our students went to college after graduating. Though difficult and almost a relief when we decided to not compete after 2014 when most of our students graduated, It was an incredibly valuable experience for me. As an education major, it allowed me to create experience that helped me in classes, student teaching, and now securing a job in a school where I'm helping out 2 FTC teams, 1 FRC team, and an FTC-focused class. I'm also completing my Master's Degree in STEM Education this year.

If anyone has questions about Illinois Tech, majoring in physics or education, or becoming a teacher, feel free to message me!

Myself and a few friends are also currently starting the FIRST Illinois Robotics Alumni Association; FIRST Illinois wants to keep track of our alumni, and our group of friends noticed that a lot of our best friends are also alumni and we volunteer together and have a lot of fun together outside of robotics. We wanted to create a community where we can see where our alumni end up, host networking events, volunteer together, and generally make friends with other alumni, which has been really fun so far. If your an alumnus of an Illinois team or a FIRST alumnus living in Illinois, sign up here.