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Unread 19-04-2016, 16:34
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george.tan george.tan is offline
Raider Power!
AKA: George
FRC #3005 (RoboChargers)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Texas
Posts: 45
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Re: Incorporating Alumni within FRC Teams

I was a college mentor on a 100% college student run FRC team (FRC1817 www.team1817.org). All of our mentors are college students, and some alumnus. We've been around for 11 years now. Here are a few recommendations I have for college/alumni mentors.

1. Keep the college freshman away from the team. They need to discover themselves before mentoring a team. Also, mentoring requires a tons of time and dedication. It's best for the freshman to get 4.0 their first year in college.

2. Alumni should be invited to team events to be part include them as part of the team, but not necessarily a mentor.

3. Alumni mentors MUST be properly trained and reintroduced to the team as a mentor, or else their mentor creditability and authority can easily be ignored by students (ie college freshman/sophomore is only 1-2 years older than a HS senior).

4. School should ALWAYS comes first for college mentors, therefore if a college mentor is suffering academically, then they shouldn't be mentoring a team.

5. FIRST is much more than just building a robot. Mentoring is much more than just the technical skills. College mentors can also share their experience on how to prepare for college or what to expect as a young adult moving away from your family. The near-peer experience is often overlooked by FIRST teams.

6. College mentors should be treated as a mentor-in-training. Give them actual responsibilities and see what they're able to do. The best way to put this would be a Padawan in Star Wars (if you get the reference). College mentors require mentorship too!

These are just my 2cents
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FRC3005 mentor 2016 -
FRC1817 college mentor 2007 - 2015
FRC1817 student 2006
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