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Unread 16-03-2004, 22:14
Erin Rapacki's Avatar
Erin Rapacki Erin Rapacki is offline
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Team Role: Engineer
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Rookie Year: 2001
Location: San Francisco, CA
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Re: College Students: How is your experience in FIRST?

When I was a senior in High School, I knew that I wanted to continue with FIRST... so I picked a school that would work around my FIRST schedule:

Year one: classes from September - June
-Ok, taking classes and doing FIRST is a major pain in the @s5... kudos to you guys who do that successfully
-I was on a new team so I took the time to 'learn their ways,' I purposely shy'd away from having any definate responsibilities and only promised them a Chairman's Award entry
-I concieved the idea for the Beantown Blitz last march while staring at a wall during Physics class, I proceded to ask the Dean of Engineering if he'd be interested... he said 'yes,' it all started from there (most of you know the rest of the story )

Year two, three, & four: work jan-june, class july - december
-This is perfect; for build, competition, and off-season event planning time... I'm working (granted, working is still tough... but at least you know it's only a '40 hour week' and you won't have any surpise term papers to finish. Life is a bit more predictible)
-I go nuts about FIRST while I'm working, and I concentrate on School when the FIRST stuff is a bit at a lull
-While I'm in class though, I organize pre-season and do other 'team leader' type stuff... I'm in the process of making that a Work-Study position for a few hours of each week. This will help with time-management a little more.

Year five, class august - april
-I don't know how I'll feel about things my Senior year, but I'll probably have a lighter team responsibility and pay attention to classes. I do have the rest of my life to enjoy FIRST, but I have to make school a priority.

So all in all, I'm not a typical college student. I'm working at DEKA on the iBOT right now as a intern, and working there... haha, it feels like your workin on a FIRST Robotics Team all the time. They are truely a unique company.

Ok, back to living the dream.


ByE

erin
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BUZZ 175 (01, 02) - NUTRONS 125 (03, 04) - QUEEN 1975 (06)
Beantown Blitz Founder (04) - FIRST Robotics Conferences (04) - Boston Regional Volunteer Coordinator (06)
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