[tsaksa]

You found a lot of the positives yourself, but the most significant negative point you mentioned was the time commitment. No doubt about that one. FIRST can consume a lot of time, and at times may even jeopardize academics. It is important for everyone to recognize that and try to avoid angering in too deep. However, try to keep the time sink that FIRST can pose in perspective. It is not as if the typical high school student does not regularly waste time on plenty of other activities. And, it is not as if removing FIRST from a typical teenagers life would result in all that time magically getting divided equitably into important social, academic, or family pursuits.

I know a lot of teenagers and see how they spend their time. Those who are not in a structured program like FIRST, band, or a non technical sport, are very likely to spend huge amounts of time on Facebook, playing video games, watching funny U-Tube videos, sending semi meaningless text messages to friends, etc. It is not that there are not other valuable activities out there. It is just that for many students, there does not seem to be a lack of slack time that might be put toward FIRST if that was important to them. There are even times when I think you could save enough extra time to run an entire build season by just inventing a smart phone app for students that would automatically text all of their contacts a few times a day with SUP, and would automatically reply NTM if it received a SUP. Look instant simulated social life!

But seriously, FIRST really is worth it as long as you don't get so focused that you completely ignore other parts of your life. And from what I have seen on our team there are usually folks looking out for you on that one.