Funny story... I was great in math and science for my age freshman year of high school (of course we all know now that's not what matters on a FIRST team) so when I saw flyers for a FIRST Robotics team I was immediately interested... BUT... my room wasn't clean to my father's liking the day I asked him to go to a meeting so I stayed home and since I wasn't at the opening info meeting I figured it was too late to join without asking. It wasn't until the middle of the school year that I had our lead mentor as my study hall teacher and somehow I found out that she was associated with the team so I asked her about it and got involved. Brings back memories... at that point in time I was just a little freshman cheerleader that people were hesitant to take seriously after I'd come into meetings in uniform since they were right after cheerleading practice. I was also one of only three girls at the time on our team of about 30-40 people. To think that the team went from that to a team of 100 including mentors, and half of that being girls, and holding two titled leadership positions including co-CEO before graduating is incredible. It didn't make me an engineer, even though that's what I started out as my first year of college, it made me a better person - I mean both professionally with business and management skills, and ethically. I guess that was more of not only how I became involved, but how I was able to see myself and the entire team transform for the better after only a period of a single high school career... but figured it'd be worth sharing if anyone has read this far
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