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Originally Posted by sanddrag
I'd bet there are more college students (with engineering or technical majors too) than you know who have never drilled a hole or who have never picked up a screwdriver or never written a program.
Remember, not all the highschool students out there get to experience FIRST (or anything remotely similar to it) and a lot of times they get stuck in their books in college. And when they finish their education, all they have is pile of books, and a mind full of formulas, and no idea what to do with them.
I'm all for it.
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Why pull mentors away from high school kids, who haven't made their career choices yet, to allow college kids (who already made their career decision) to drive robots on the field?
That's all that'd be accomplished. You might inspire a few business majors to become ME's or EE's, but it will be a disproportionally small number. With the way college is now, people are looking to get out as quickly as possible. Very very few people will be willing to sacrifice over a year of coursework for a liberal arts/business/what have you degree to switch over and work on an engineering degree. It just doesn't make sense, particularly in economic terms, and wages lost by not being in the workforce when you have to makeup that year.
The majority of the people such a competition would attract are a) kids who did FIRST in high school, or engineers at the college in question. Either way, both of these groups have already seen the message of FIRST. The only thing this would do for them is allow them to compete on the playing field, and let them have fun.
It's not worth it to entice current college mentors away from high school kids, where they can actually affect a kid's career choice, and make a difference.
$0.02