Excellent question, M. Here's my story (hopefully not typical):
When I came to Ball State University, I did not know anything about the school itself FIRST-wise, except that it did not have a team. It was only after I got here that I realized that BSU also had no engineering program whatsoever. The only thing it did have was a good technology program and a couple very dedicated on-campus high school students that had previously been on teams. I tried to get Ball State faculty involved (our one professor that agreed to help the team and was very interested in the team stopped taking my phone calls after a while) and we've been interviewed by the BSU newspaper, but they just aren't interested. If I tell anyone about the team, they are always amazed that BSU even has a team.
Our high school students tried to get the team started last year, to no avail. They were told by most of their teachers that the idea was impossible and that they would never get a team started. (Great encouragement there.)
Now that we have the team started, it has been a constant personal struggle to maintain passing grades in my classes, have some kind of family life, and still attend FIRST events, activities, and meetings. After a lot of tears and deliberation (and some early morning conversations with the great Ken Leung), I realized that FIRST has completely overtaken my life, schoolwork, and I simply can't afford all of that responsibility. I found that more and more students will be coming to BSU next year that are interested in the team, and wonderful Josh Hambright from 461 decided that he would be a 'travelling mentor' and would help out team 1020 on weekends during the build season. I announced to my team about two weeks ago that after IRI, I wouldn't be returning as a mentor, but if anything only a spectator. I'm still uneasy with the situation, but I think it is my only option at this point.
When M. and a couple CD cohorts came up with the spectacular idea of freelanceFIRST, I thought, "This is something I can help with that won't completely take over my life and something I can help with from good old BSU." I'm hoping that freelanceFIRST will be something that I can really work with and adapt to. My school year this year is pretty much shot, so let's hope that freelancing can bring up my grades a bit.
All right, there you go. A long and boring account of my personal college team experiences - fun, huh?
