[Matt Leese]

I think I can safely say at this point that I've almost done it all with FIRST. I've learned a lot from it including a lot of what not to do. I spent three years in high school on a very student run team (1998 to 2000 on team 7). After I graduated from high school I thought that this had prepared me very well to do anything I wanted in FIRST. I was very wrong; I still had quite a bit to learn.

My first year in college (2001) I helped (although helped might be a bit weak word) to restart team 73 and ended up running the team. In short, it almost ended as a total mess. We did manage to work everything out in the end but many things went wrong. One of the major things I learned from that experience is that you need to either be involved in adminstrative issues or engineering issues, not both.

In 2002, given that 73 didn't have any funding, I participated as a mentor on 340. This was a rather different experience as 340 was well organized, well funded, and had a strong mentor base. I simply helped with the electronics and the programming that year.

In 2003, I helped with the second restart of 73 during the off season and then went on coop for the winter. That year I mentored team 888 which made me attempt to be a mechanical engineer which did not turn out so well.

In May of 2003 we started to float the idea of RIT holding a regional competition in 2005. I was involved in the initial start up of that effort and only became less involved because I moved to California for a coop. While I arrived here in the middle of the first week of build, I was connected with team 1135. They asked me to be their engineering lead and (somewhat against my better judgement) I accepted. We got a robot built but otherwise we can't exactly decide whether or not the season was successful.

There are a number of issues wrapped up in being a college mentor. I think I've been saying that you have to make sure you're in FIRST for the right reason as long as John V. Neunn has been (or maybe even longer). We loose more than half of the people that initially show up for meetings from our team simply because it wasn't what they expected. It's important to remember that every team is different and that you shouldn't expect it to be the same as when you were in high school. If you're not mentoring for the sake of the students, you're usually better off not doing it at all.

FIRST also requires a huge time committment. It takes a good amount of maturity (an amount that some college students are missing) in order to be able to schedule your school work, your personal life, and FIRST successfully and not neglect one of them too greatly.

Have I burned out? Yes, and I've said many times that this year will be my last year (or I need a break). None of its happened. Part of that is because I feel a responsibility to the program, part of it is because I like FIRST a lot. I think I used to be more involved (I think most of the people from the old days of Chief Delphi know me but many fewer from now) outside of my team but I've just lost the energy with which to do it. Part of that has been my coping strategy for dealing with the stress; just don't be quite as involved so that I don't take things as badly when they go wrong.

The question was posed as to whether or not college freshmen should join FIRST teams. The answer is yes if you're doing it for the right reason, if you can schedule your school work around it successfully (the key being successfully), and if you can be a positive contributing member of the team. But this is pretty much the same for any mentor.

For the final questions Ken posed, college students can make great mentors. They can also make awful mentors. It's the same way with adults. I don't really see much of a difference between the mentoring ability of adults and college students simply because there really isn't any. We're all people and we all can do either well or badly.

Matt