Quote:
Originally Posted by surfwizz
This is something that I started to notice last year as I applied for college: FIRST seems to produce a great number of engineers and programmers at the expense of other science and technology fields. We rarely hear about FIRST students in these other areas. I love designing and building robots, but I also love art and design, so I chose to concentrate (my college doesn't actually have majors) in industrial design. That said, it felt weird standing next to my fellow graduating teammates and saying that I would be studying industrial design while they all listed engineering or programming majors. I think that a lot of this is a product of the FIRST program design, which emphasizes the build process and engineering mentors, but should FIRST do more to promote non-engineering majors and careers that still fall within science and technology related fields? Was this just my experience, or have other people noticed this as well?
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Honestly, I think this is one of the areas that FIRST does not need to improve in. They get it just right. They provide the program and by drawing in mentors from different professions and fields of interest and expertise, the program is ripe with possibilities and diverse opportunities. The possibilities and opportunities open doors to educational choices and career decisions. When those doors open, the futures of the generations impacted by the FIRST program(s) have a very solid and promising potential for becoming realities. The realities have a very solid and promising potential for strengthening and improving our world as we know it. No, FIRST does not only make engineers - it creates change.
Jane
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