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Re: Generation gaps
On our team we have the entire range of ages from our main team coach (who is retiring in a year), to a Mechanical Engineer (who is 30), to high school students. I can honestly say that we have never had any real problems between the age generations, as everyone on our team looks up to and respects our team coach (who we nicknamed Einstein) and team engineer (Ben Piecuch).
The only real issues we've had are exactly the same as Jaine's, where college-age alumni and a current high-school student have had personal conflicts. Unfortunately, this year one of these long-standing interpersonal affairs only kept dragging more and more students into the problem, and it degenerated into a "my word versus his/her word" type of thing. After being dragged into it, it was not very pretty.
I tried to stay on the neutral high ground and moderate a solution without dropping to the mudslinging-level, and I was successful for several months. (Successful in the fact that the severity of the problem was kept "secret" from everyone who was not directly involved in the problem, so to keep it from flaring up and involving everyone.)
After several months, the problem couldn't longer be contained any further and it flared up, dragging the entire team into it. In the end, it was worked out that the two parties should "chill-out", go in seperate ways, and to cease their long-standing personal issues.
The lesson here to be learned is that if you are returning to your team as a college student, you are now a mentor, and not a student. You have to command authority, act in a responsible and mature manner, and demand respect. You'll need to stop acting in immature ways, and start acting like the role-model for the current students.
To all new collage students who would like to mentos their original teams, here is a bit of advice. Now that you've passed the line, there is no going back; what is over is over, and cannot be changed. You've had fur years of good memories, but not you'll need to move on. It may be hard having to start mentoring students who may be only months younger than you are, but that is life. You'd better start learning now, where mistakes [hopefully] won't cause too much damage, rather than later, where the stakes are much higher.
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