[TubaMorg]

This is a pretty interesting thread and brings up the generations old dilemma a lot of post-High School people suffer through. The I'm-18-but-I-am-still-a-kid transition period. I remember around this time in my life suffering through the same things. It is really difficult to switch from being part of the gang to being an outsider. Even worse, as a Senior everyone is telling you how great you are, giving you scholarships, giving you awards, making you out to be some sort of super hero. Then you graduate. You move into the next phase of your life, whether it be college, military, or whatever and you find out not many people are all the impressed with you any more. It is natural to return back to the scene of glory and try to recapture the magic. But it's never the same, it's never as great as you remember. The key is to recognize this and figure out what your new role as a "grown up" is.

Reminds me of Bruce Springsteen's song 'Glory Days'

Changing sub-topic: This year we were fortunate to have several University of Houston engineering students help with our team. We are still feeling our way through this relationship, because it didn't quite work out to our satisfaction this year. They planned on coming only on Fridays and Saturdays, so as to minimize the impact on their studies, which is reasonable enough. However, they got their feelings hurt when design ideas that they had one week weren't implemented the following week. We tried to explain to them that during a frantic 6 week build period, a LOT of changes can take place over 7 days and that without continued involvement, their ideas might not make it.

So what I am going to try and do for next year is to meet with the Engineering department deans and see if the UH students could get some credit for participating in FIRST. One thing that sort of amazed me was that a lot of engineering students don't have the foggiest idea of how to build anything. FIRST mentoring is a fantastic opportunity to gain first (not a pun) hand experience on planning and building. PLUS if they are receiving college credit for their participation (sort of an independent study model), they can logically devote more time to a FIRST team without impacting their grades negatively.

Problems with the idea: Engineering schools usually have a pretty strict curriculum that needs to be followed to graduate in time (4 years). The rigidity of the curriculum may make implementing a credit course for FIRST mentoring difficult. Even if the engineering school administration seems amenable to the idea, it may take quite a bit of time before it becomes available to the students.

So, to you college mentors out there, if you could receive 1 or 2 credit hours for working with a FIRST team, wouldn't this help? It might be worth a try. Maybe if ONE engineering school out there were to allow it, it would be easier to convince other schools to follow suit.