When I was a kid, I was that girl who liked Legos and Hot Wheels. I was that girl who hung out with the boys more than the girls. I was that girl who dreamed of being an inventor instead of a princess.

For me, I started FIRST back when I was in the 5th grade in FLL. At that time I wanted to be an engineer (a pilot or air-traffic controller for years) and I was heavily influenced by my family to pursue an engineering-type career. I did build and programming and didn't enjoy the research/spirit side very much. I stayed in FLL until 7th grade and then joined an FTC team. At about 14 years old I decided I didn't want to be an engineer (I was also influenced by some of the students in my classes who told me that girls couldn't be engineers). I continued to stay in our school's FIRST program because I became friends with many of the people that were on my FTC team (and it was either robotics or a sport and I was never really that athletic).

I joined our school's FRC team when I reached high school and didn't expect to do much in the way of working with the robot. I learned a bit about each area of the team and nothing really jumped at me. When build season started I did small jobs (tightening screws, getting tools, etc.) though I still attempted (and later achieved) varsity credit. I didn't expect to do much the next year either.

At our first competition I was asked by one of my coaches to consider learning programming. My first thought was "Me? A programmer? There's no way I could do that!" I'd seen programming before and it looked too hard for me to learn. I ended up accepting the offer and learning programming over the summer.

And how do I like programming now? Well, I do like it. It took a while to comprehend and I'm sure my coach got frustrated with me (I got "fired" many times), but I stuck with it. As of right now I'm still unsure of what exactly I want to do for the rest of my life, but I'm considering going into a career that involves programming. I'm still learning LabVIEW, but I've been encouraged by many of my friends to learn other languages like Java and C++.

So, I was put into engineering by my parents, but what sparked (or I guess resparked) my interest in engineering was learning that it's something that I can do. It's something that I just can't get away from (I've always been told by my parents that I have "an engineering mind" though I've never really believed them). I like coming up with new ideas and fixing problems to much quit engineering.

Just my little (well... not really "little") story on how I ended up at where I am in FIRST. I apologize for the length.