[Brandon Holley]

Speaking as a FIRST involved person starting in high school, and then making the transition to mentor in college, I have a couple of thoughts:

1. The transition from student to mentor WILL NOT be instantaneous regardless of what team you are going to (your old one or a new one). It is just simply too hard to flip that switch in your head to become a full on mentor in 1 year. The saying you always hear around here is that you start becoming a mentor after your first year in the program. While this is true, it is sometimes difficult for students to realize that they are acting like a student (this comes from observing several dozen college students help out our team)

2. Even though that switch cannot be thrown in one year, I do not think that a student should not be able to become a mentor the next year. On our team, we don't have any "adult engineers" or "adult mentors" as most people call them. We have about 15 college students who are working on the transition to mentor. The first year college kids are still in the middle of the student/mentor transition, but the seasoned veterans who have been in college for a couple years GET IT, and they usually can take the role of an "adult mentor".

3. I agree with what the mentors are doing, by not allowing the student to come back as a mentor, however it seems like the team may need a 3rd category. There does not necessarily need to be STUDENTS and MENTORS....why not have STUDENTS, MENTORS, and COLLEGE STUDENTS. If the students really want to stay involved, why not let them stay involved. It may give the mentors on the team a chance to flex their mentor training muscles if you know what I am saying. Allow the college students to lead some design discussions, or some other task, but under the eye of a mentor.

4. The college student in FIRST is unnatural. Plain and simple. FIRST, in my opinion does not have a good place for college students, which brings up what JVN said about joining other groups (like mini baja, which is awesome). However, I feel college students just need time to learn this amorphous role that FIRST leaves for them. I know that over my 4 years at northeastern I have changed from ex-student to mentor, and I think that I do a fairly decent job at being a mentor while handling everything else that goes with college.

5. Finally, I feel that being a college student does give an advantage. JVN, I know you said that saying things like "I'll be a better mentor because we're so close in age" is an easy door to hide behind, but if a college student is effectively being a mentor, I think it DOES give an advantage. High school students would tend to relate more towards a college mentor. Maybe a high school student seeing that being an engineer (or whatever you want to be) does not mean being a "nerd" or someone who dwells in basements all day and night.

Take this advice for what you will. It is my honest opinion of FIRST life for a college mentor. For me, being a mentor has been very gratifying, and it means a lot to me to be able to "payback" what someone did for me in high school.

Good Luck with your situation, I hope my advice helps!

-brando