[Steven Sigley]

It can be hard to let go. I started to ease up when I became a senior, training a freshman friend of mine to take over as the head of electrical. Now she has become a senior and it goes full circle. I've been lucky enough to go to college close enough that I can still mentor my old team.

It's definetly a bit of a challenge balancing the desire to use your experience and steamroll ideas to get what you think might be the best result. At the same time though sometimes you can learn a lot from what the freshman and new students have to offer. New ideas are always coming up.

Inspiration is a two way street. The mentors and alumni can inspire the students, and the students with their young open minds can find innovative solutions to problems. This year was particularly great for me. I've fallen a little more naturally into the role of mentor keep my hands off when I can and watched the students explore their options. It's worked too, we've had our most successful year to date: winning our first 2 regionals within 2 weeks of each other.


Finally as a mentor who was a former student, it's nice to see the progression of the team, and how little steps from when I was on the team have snowballed into a culture of strategy, initiative and success. We started a student leadership program my junior year, and since then we've had a solid leadership structure that has helped our team be efficient and win entrepreneurship awards.