[Madison]

How We Could’ve Changed the Culture, But Didn’t.

I’ve been struggling with the direction FIRST has been moving in and my role in that movement for the past half-year. Sometimes publicly, sometimes privately, I’ve been consistently reevaluating why I became involved, what I hoped to achieve from my involvement, and what I hoped to personally gain. I’ve been asking if I have, or can truly make a difference.

When I signed on to this, way back in 1999, I hadn’t the slightest idea about what FIRST was or had been, nor where it was going. I only saw it as an intense, fun outlet for my creative mind. I didn’t give the other participants a second thought, and I never really took the time to consider the impact my mentors could have on me. Only in the years following have I gained a true appreciation for some of the amazing individuals that are peppered throughout FIRST, and with that, my desire to be just like them grew stronger and stronger. I don’t think any of us could really say that we don’t want to be something greater than we are. We all aspire toward becoming a bit more like our role models, and in FIRST, I found many of my role models. Interestingly, most are not older than I am.

Over the past 6 months, I’ve faced a constant challenge to my dedication to this program as a result of certain individuals, as well as prevailing trends among the largest groups of participants. A lot of what I’ve hoped to accomplish appears bleak and impossible, sometimes, and I’m not even sure if it’s the right thing to do anymore. In the past half-year, I’ve become riddled with self-doubt over my dedication and insistence on doing to the good thing for FIRST. With that came a lot of introspection and thought, and I so I am sharing some of the conclusions I came to here, with the hope that it might still effect a bit of change. My involvement here continues be a subject of heated debate within myself and among my friends.

I bought into Dean’s plan to change the culture hook, line and sinker. I thought it was just the opportunity I was looking for to be a real force of change in the broadest sense. I thought that together with FIRST, and largely because of FIRST, I’d have a shot at opening some eyes to an interesting new way of looking at life. I thought that some of the things I’ve had such trouble with in the past; the things that I hold in such high regard that go completely ignored by society might become a central focus. That competition wasn’t important and that FIRST broke through the boundaries of age, sex, gender and ability were among the most prominent factors in luring me in.

With time, I’ve come to realize that FIRST is as deeply entrenched in the same convention and culture as the society it’s trying to change. At least, this seems to be largely true. Where a lot of the basis for FIRST could be easily employed as a lifestyle, its often relegated to being just another extracurricular activity, or another tax write-off, or another way of getting your company’s product or logo onto television, or in the paper, or out a banner in some high school, somewhere. The enormous potential isn’t only being wasted, but utterly disregarded and tossed to the wayside. It’s not that people aren’t capable of understanding that potential, but that they’re lazy, and that they’re operating within parameters established by the conventional. They’re afraid, maybe, to break away from that. Recent discussion has illustrated this clearly for me, with particular regard to two of FIRST culture’s two most beloved groups.

Dean and Woodie each like to encourage high school students that have been in the program to move on to college or the work force and to remain dedicated to FIRST; not to its ideals, necessarily, but to the program. They want us to found new teams at our universities if they don’t yet exist, or they want us to support the teams that do exist. One of my “Question of the Week” topics revealed, interestingly, that a majority of students moving on to college factor the existence of a team at a certain school very heavily into their plans. Rather than start a new team, the majority chooses to follow the beaten path and go where a team exists already. This is great for those colleges with existing, successful programs, but does very little for Dean and Woodie’s goal of spreading FIRST to more schools.

Starting a team isn’t easy, and it’s probably not for everyone. But, rather than taking steps to make it easier and accessible by working toward establishing a visible number of College-FIRST partnerships and other programs, we choose the easier route. The fact is that everyone in FIRST sticks to convention, arguing often that “grades are more important,” suggesting to me that their belief in the potential of FIRST to change the culture doesn’t really exist. Where there is a perfect opportunity to begin challenging our cultures expectations of its youth by demanding that colleges and universities understand and adapt to their students, I see such opportunity being wasted and watch as people are encouraged to fall in line. We pay the tuition at these schools, so why are we giving in to their expectations of what we should be doing? Why are the other participants of FIRST, some young, some old, encouraging us to give in? Where’s the movement; the culture-changing wave of college students and new-born engineers that wanted to change the way things are done? I can’t find it anywhere and I can’t find the seed for it, either. The fire I had to make such changes is quickly waning in the never ending rainstorms of reality and laziness.