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Originally Posted by Ken Lueng
Have you been this role before? And if so, how did it affect your life, school work, and participation in FIRST? If not, do you think this is something you want to do?
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THis is my first year as a mentor. I completely and wholeheardedly want to keep doing this. BUt I think some help is in order. I'm the only "adult" on the team, and between last night and tomorrow my responsibilities include-getting a hold of a tax exempt form, and then apply for grants - order more of our fundraising stuff - buy a hacksaw, cause hand saws don't work so well on aluminum - find somebody to help my programmer and/or figure it our myself - open a bank account for the team, which entails getting an employee identification number - contact the newspaper that wants to do a story on us - find a team that can donate/lend us five victor 883's and 3 spikes - figure out how to raise $300 to buy the radios - and learn how to use inventor, so I can teach them. It's kinda hard getting everything done myself.
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Originally Posted by Ken Lueng
Do you recommend other High School graduates to become a college FIRST mentor? Why or why not?
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Mostly Yes. I say if there's a team in your area that you can mentor go for it. To kind of ease you in to mentoring with out having to do everything. If you do decide to start a team, make sure you have help. And it's okay to take a year to practice. I'm really glad my team did or we would have struggled the whole season.
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Originally Posted by Ken Lueng
Do you think college students are appropriate mentors? How do they compare to adult mentors who are teachers, engineers, or parents?
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Mostly Yes. It depends a lot on the person. I think if you have a college student along with engineers, teachers, parents, it's great. I think with a group of say, three college students, it would be a lot easier than just one. I also mentored 226 this year, but it was a completely different experience because there's also engineers and teachers and older college mentors. I think the hardest part about about being a college mentor (and the only adult) is the lack of age difference and only being a year away from being a kid myself. Some of the kids on the team are not even a year younger than I. Everything else there's just a lot of it.
Yes, mentoring is hard work. Some meetings I come home, and I want to beat my head against the wall. But it's all worth it and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I think the best moment for me this year was the first time they didn't design a battlebot and I realized I had finally beat an ounce of GP into them.
Allison