In order for me to post on this thread I'd need a lot of free time to write out all my thoughts.
FIRST has introduced me to amazing people, it's set me up for a career path I'm interested in, and it has become my life. I don't consider that a con. (My non-FIRST friends do, though...)
I've been going to events since I was teeny tiny, but since starting my own team and joining CD I have come in contact with the best people you could ever meet. Mentors, students, parents- all of them helping me and inspiring me to be the best I can. I have traveled all over the country for FIRST, and the traveling has introduced me to new experiences- some good, and some bad. (Greyhound buses? Never again.) All of them have shaped me to become who I am. I have never regretted a second I have ever spent at a FIRST event or with the people I've met because of FIRST.
I think my experiences can be summed up in my answer to a FIRST Student Survey we received at the NJ regional:
(paraphrased- I don't remember what I actually wrote)
How has FIRST changed your life?
-It hasn't. Being involved in FIRST from a young age, I have seen the value of the program. FIRST became my life and it is hard for me to imagine life without it. I wouldn't actually know how it has changed me because I never really experienced high school without FIRST.
I will probably come back to this thread- but Study Hall is over.
FIRST is great. Enough said.
