[DanL]

*renames thread to "SENIORS: college essays ahoy!*

Seriously though, like most people, being involved in FIRST has made me much more of an outgoing and confident person. It's not only the engineering thats good, it's also the fact that it gets you out of the house and lets you interact with people. I'll admit it - freshman year, I was the shy kid that stayed at home all the time. I'd just sit on the internet or watch TV or just waste time - it was miserable. I had all these ideas and thoughts of "wouldn't it be cool if..." -- problem was I had no real motivation to do anything. When a robotics team was formed at my school sophmore year, well, it was the removal of that last stone that kept the dam together. The dam broke apart, and the floodwaters behind it were violently released. I had found a place to develop all these vague thoughts and ideas that have been tickling my mind. In my freshman stay-at-home-expieriences, I had toyed around with computer things like Flash, web development, programming - all your classic stereotypical computer nerd stuff. With robotics, I've been able to focus all these things towards a single cause. Although I'm sure general high school development played the primary role, I think the interaction involved in applying all this has made me a more outgoing person.