Quote:
Originally Posted by hauki
I am a new engineering mentor (started in Sept) and would like some advice.
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Is a mentor part of the team? I was told by an angry\stressed student that mentors are not part of the team. My view is that we are all on the same team but have different roles to support. I think I am there to help\encourage\voice concerns if the project is slipping?
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Welcome to being a mentor. I will likely be the hardest fun you will ever have.
Mentors are definitely part of the program. As others have said, it is part of the core values.
Mentors being part of the team will ultimately be your Team's decision. I personally will not be a mentor on a team that will not let me be "part" of the team.
As a new mentor, I will caution you that there are a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences between FIRST teams and "high tech projects". the first season you help out can be overwhelming and I suggest you try not to be too pushy as you do not know the background. This can be hard, especially for someone with your large amount of experience. Hopefully a personal anecdote might help.
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For example, I have worked with a few teams in the past. In 2009, I was introduced to a rookie school 3 weeks into build season, and we did not skip any steps, but built a minimally competitive robot (
MCC) (it drove around and did positive actions, and even ended up backing its way into an event win that year). I also had about a decade working with a very successful team, and then last year started helping a different successful team.
Even though I had 10 years of FIRST experience (and 15 years of industry experience), I was new to that team. At one point I thought they were irreversibly behind, but they were following their process and ended up with a pretty successful season (a 2nd and 2 first place district finishes along with decent showing at MSC and Worlds (played in elims at both).
They were behind "my expectations" of where they should be, but they were meeting their standards, and ultimately produced pretty good results.
I will not work with a team that won't let me be part of the team. As others have said, that is part of my fun, and my "pay". We are all teammates, as you said in your post, some of us have different roles.
I also will not work with a team that is content with failure. Failure is a perfectly fin thing to have happen, I just push for it to occur early and in the development process, and want them to do their best to mitigate failure during competition.
Your team is young enough that it is likely still getting its culture. Work with them on that. Even on established team with agreement of student mentor involvement, you will have an occasional student that thinks mentors should do nothing. It happens. Try to help them understand the program and if you can point to team values. If your team doesn't have that, point to FIRST values of a mentor based program.
another phrase I like:
We all volunteer to be a part of this team. I work with the students, not for them, nor do they work for me.