Quote:
Originally posted by ebmonon36
Could someone on 461 tell me how you prevent having hundreds of prospective engineers on your team? It just seems like everyone would want to join.
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Okay not to beat a dead dog cuz this has been answered pretty thourghly already but yah we do have alot of people show up. But we reall weed them down. Our entire group of TECH Advisors this year had been on first teams in high school. Out of all of our advisors i think we are graduating 3 maybe 4 so that means either next year we are going to admit a whole lot more advisors or we are going to have to only allow 3 or 4 people to join. We already know people are going to try and come to our team from other teams and we are totaly psyched about it.
Another reason we dont have a ton of engineers is the turn over rate. Usualy we have 2 or 3 advisors that just cant handle it and end up either dropping out during the season or quiting post season. All of our advisors spend amazing amounts of time on this program. Raj has been known to pull 3 all nighters a week(WARNING I DO NOT CONDONE THIS KIND OF ACTION). They have to take test and exams early to goto competition. Drop everything on a saturday and wake up early missing cartoons to come watch a bunch of HS kids work in a shop and help us build our robot. Its not an easy life but as they will tell you, they agree with dean. They are getting alot more out of this then they are putting in. The returns and the rewards are outweighing the pain and the stress and the hardwork and the headaches.
Now as far as answering the question for this week. FIRST has changed my life, if you wanna hear my spiel PM me or talk to me at competition... I'll talk your ear off with my own little personal story. I am planning on staying in town next year and attending IVY TECH state college to get that under my belt so that if i apply to another state college they wont look at my horrible high school transcript. I plan on doing the FREELANCE FIRST thing with amanda morrison and trying to get involved heavily in the indiana FIRST community. I've already layed an offer out on the table to go and help 1020 whenever i can even if my team cant go and do it as much as they need. I'll be there whenever time, money, and school will let me. (Thanks to amanda offering me a place to stay!) I will also be on team 461 probably as a consultant as oposed to an advisor (for a few reasons i dont wanna get into). In addition to this whenever i do end up going to a real 4 year college (if i do) I am sure i will either goto a school with a first team or i will goto one without one and start one. I'm a LIFER now, thats the term we use on 461 coined by the great Chris Noble to describe someone that will always be involved in FIRST, no matter where they go or what they do.