[patrickrd]

I was thinking about FIRST, as I often do, on my way home today, and realized that FIRST truly is having a profound effect on what I consider to be my generation (current HS students and college students and recent graduates). Throughout my past few years in College, I have run into countless people that did FIRST in high school. My best (and conservative) estimate would be about 50, from every corner of the country and Canada. Most of these students are very bright and have good ideas of what they want to do with their life. They are above the campus norm.

But recently in the past year, it has seemed I am running into FIRST people everywhere on campus. A good percentage of the students that applied to Cornell's Robocup team last year had all done FIRST, or at the least heard of it.

Today, I happened to be walking through the corridors of one of our engineering buildings, where a campus tour was taking place. As I began swatting all these gnats out of the way and making my way through the crowd, I hear "Were you on 217?" I then noticed I was wearing a bright green ThunderChickens shirt. Several people, all knowing that these numbers meant FIRST without anybody mentioning FIRST, were now talking to me, not paying attention to the tour guide, to find out what team I've been on. When I mentioned that we have a team in Ithaca, I could see the student's face light up with approval.

I have met a couple of my closest friends, too, simply by running into their familiar FIRST shirts.

Anyway, I am sure some of you have similar situations where you are in environments where FIRST people are all over the place. Do any engineers out there run into other young engineers who did FIRST in high school or college? Other interesting stories?

I am excited to see all these FIRST people around, and looking forward to see how the world twists and turns when we're all in the work place. I can't help but hope and expect that the world is about to become -- at least to some degree -- a better place.

- Patrick