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Originally Posted by Basel A
We have 6 college mentors (including me), but two are graduating this year. I've been actively trying to bring in more, both FRC alumni and from ASME/other student organisations, but they're hard to convince. Being a student is more than a full time job and many students doubt their own expertise. We have a college mentor working on getting official recognition and support from the College of Engineering, but it's a slow process. When it comes to college mentors, it's harder to convince them than to find them. I'd personally be curious to hear about strategies on this in particular.
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I am a mentor for 1014, and I have been a part of the OSU FIRST mentoring organization since my freshman year, and was the president during the 2011-2012 school year. We have about 40 college students, mentoring 7 teams in the Columbus metropolitan area.
We recruit heavily from student involvement fairs and demos at the freshman honors robotics competition here at OSU. One of the ways we convince mentors is to run a training class during the fall semester, in preparation for the season. We have found that to take off a lot of pressure from potential mentors, as they aren't jumping in without preparation. Of course, about half of our mentors have previous FIRST experience, like I did, but some of our most involved mentors were people that we recruited from around OSU.
Finding a faculty member willing to be involved, and can support your organization as an official club or student project team, will go a long ways toward getting support from your college.