I am a software engineer who graduated from college in 1985... so obviously FIRST was not an option for me in high school, but how I wish it had been.
I did not start college as an engineering major... I started as a math major because I knew I liked math (and science) but didn't really know much about computers or engineering. We had only one computer class in my high school and the teacher of that class told me that I could never be a programmer because I didn't have the imagination for it.
Well, it turns out she was wrong. After my first semester in college where I took an intro computer class as part of the math curriculum, I was hooked... it was just so much more than just math. I immediately applied to change my major and ended up graduating #5 in my class of over 500 in the EE/CS department at UConn. There were not a lot of female engineering students back then (maybe 10% at most), but to be honest that didn't really make any difference to me. Those of us who were there worked hard along side the guys and, other than standing out a little in the classroom filled with testosterone, it was not an issue. I had always been a nerd in high school and always tried to remember that it didn't matter what others thought about me. It was my life to make of it what I wanted.
But I never forgot what that teacher had told me (obviously since I am telling you now
)... I guess you could say that she motivated me to prove her wrong. I have never regretted that decision and I love that it has provided me with skills that I can now pass along to students I mentor as part of FIRST.