[Stephen Kowski]

Did the availability of FIRST competitions or mentorship on a team highly affect your college choices? One of the aspects that helped me pick USF was that I had an opportunity to start a new team. There were never any teams in the same county as USF so I thought it would be best to try there rather than other schools where they are already jaded by some aspects of FIRST.

Was the prospect of combining build season and classes a challenge for anyone? Absolutely, but in the grand scheme of a semester it normally only affects one test in a course so keeping up is not terribly difficult for me. Also it should be noted that I purposely take a lighter course load in the spring and attend during the summer to make up for it.

Did you specifically search out colleges with a prominent FIRST program, or did you choose to take a less-walked route and start a new team? Once I had a choice between schools and all other things considered I had to factor in my FIRST vote I went to the college that had never been exposed to FIRST before in any serious manner.

How do you feel about that decision? I am very happy now that I have validated (in my mind) walking away from a $40,000 scholarship for the ability to start a new FIRST team. I was not too sure how it was going to go and was nervous that I would regret walking away from the scholarship. All worked out for the best and I am very happy to have continued to work on FIRST because now 3 new schools are looking to start up next year.

Be very careful in your decision and pick your college on more than what FIRST has to do with it. Ultimately FIRST only affects one semester so be careful about going to a college for purely reasons to do with FIRST. Understand it takes a lot of hard work to start a new team so be careful before accepting that amount of responsibility. Also I would make sure I had some ace in the hole (machine shop/sponsor) just in case if you start a new team. gl hopefully this info is useful.....