Thread: College & FIRST
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Unread 24-06-2002, 00:37
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#0047 (ChiefDelphi)
  
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Re: College & FIRST
Posted by ChrisH at 2/12/2001 2:50 PM EST


Engineer on team #330, Beach 'Bots, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA JPL, J & F Machine, Raytheon, et al.


In Reply to: College & FIRST
Posted by Patrick Dingle on 2/10/2001 8:42 PM EST:



: As I college student, I am wondering how FIRST affects the lives of other college students. How involved are you all in FIRST, and do you feel that your participation affects your grades, or education in general?

: Patrick

While it's been almost 20 years since I've been a college student and FIRST didn't exist when I was, I did participate in several design related competitions during my student years. Without question the most valuable experiences of my student years were those competitions. In my case I would say that they helped me get more out of school.

When you lose a race because of a torsion failure in your drive train, you pay a little more attention when they finally get around to teaching you how to figure out torsion stresses. In my case that was two years later.

Did my grades suffer? probably, certainly for the first couple of years when everything was all theory. But I really picked up when it came to the practical stuff and labs because by then I knew how to make things work, and my professors respected that.

My senior project was working on an SME Mini-Baja. There were few moments in my life more rewarding when our advisor finally took the wheel after the competition and drove the endurance course. When he got back he zoomed through the pits screaming "You all have A's". He told us later that it was the first time in twenty years or so of teaching that he had ever operated a senior project and not broken it!

Remember, 5 years after you get out of school most employers won't care what your grades were, they'll care what you can do. I focused on doing and have never regretted it. Of course I did have to make sure I didn't completely ignore grades, if they get too bad they kick you out and THAT can have long term consequences.

my $0.02

Chris Husmann, PE
Team 330 the Beach'Bots



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