Quote:
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Originally Posted by Andrew Blair
Engineering will never pull the publics *undivided* attention because it's unintimate. It may awe them for awhile, but all toys soon lose their appeal.
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That's why folks have to invent new toys.
Here's my reply, sent about 12.93 seconds ago:
Mr. Teschler,
I suppose I should preface my message by noting that I do mentor a FIRST Robotics team here in Columbia, South Carolina. Perhaps I have had a swig of the proverbial Kool-Aid. (Then again, I'm working towards a business degree, so perhaps I only sipped it.)
The average person in the United States probably knows who won the Daytona 500. A bunch know who won the Super Bowl--the championship of a game involving running around a patch of grass with a ball without getting the life knocked out of you. And I'll bet that a lot of people in this country know the name of someone who has won American Idol. Some will probably know them all, along with the runners-up. But how many people know the name of even one person involved with the Mars Exploration Rovers?
Fantasia Barrino won the third season of American Idol, which began about two weeks after Spirit landed on Mars. The finale, and her victory, came some four months later. Have you heard anything from her lately? The rovers were built to last 90 Martian days; Spirit is on day 782, about eight and a half times what was planned, and are still sending amazing images back to our little patch of dirt.
As a business student, I had to take a course on management this semester. One of the lectures included Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which covers the basic things a person requires to live and live happily. The hierarchy reads, from lowest to highest:
Physiological (food and water)
Safety/Security (a safe physical/emotional environment, permanence and stability)
Belongingness (friendship, acceptance)
Esteem (positive self-image)
Self-actualization (fulfillment, competence, developing one's full potential)
My time as a student on the team, then as a mentor, made me realize that marketing was a good fit for me, probably better than engineering. (After all, if you're going to have a competition that will rival the NBA, you're going to need folks to bring people there, recruit students and mentors, et cetera.) If I can help the kids on my team reach that fifth level, even if it's not in engineering, then my time working with the organization that you write as a punch line is entirely worth it.
Sincerely,
William Leverette
PS: Here's a start on the people behind the Mars Exploration Rovers:
http://marsrover.nasa.gov/people/