Is it bad to be over-dedicated to your team?

[Rez648]

Each team has the dedicated few that show up to every meeting, build session, and PR event, but is this a bad thing? I have heard that over-dedication can be a bad thing for a team and the student. I personally consider my self an over-dedicated student and so is my friend, Budda648. However, I find that being over-dedicated is not a bad thing, you just do more than everyone else and you occasionally get made fun of for not having a life outside of robotics. (By the way, robotics is my life right now)

Originally Posted by Rez648

Each team has the dedicated few that show up to every meeting, build session, and PR event, but is this a bad thing? I have heard that over-dedication can be a bad thing for a team and the student. I personally consider my self an over-dedicated student and so is my friend, Budda648. However, I find that being over-dedicated is not a bad thing, you just do more than everyone else and you occasionally get made fun of for not having a life outside of robotics. (By the way, robotics is my life right now)

Really I don't think there is such a thing as overdedication. It just shows that you take pride in what you do and you enjoy what you do. Really the only thing I could see against that is really finding that balance between your schoolwork and robotics. If you think you are "overdedicated", but your grades aren't suffering because of it...I say more power to you.

[Carlo]

I would have to put out my own experiences here. Sophomore year, I was at every meeting for the longest time I was allowed to be. Junior year I'm now working a job 20 hours a week and in much harder courses at school. My grades take priority, and in order to maintain those grades it was necessary to cut back my time at meetings. Now as far as my job, I found that to be of a lesser priority and cut back my hours to a mere 5 hours a week, just enough to pay my bills.

So is being over-dedicated a bad thing? No. Is letting your grades slip a bad thing? Yes. Is losing sight of your priorities a bad thing? Yes.

If you can maintain your grades, still be able to get 8 hours (8 hours is a joke I know) of sleep, and pay your bills while being dedicated to robotics, then go for it.

Carlo

[KenWittlief]

as long as you dont start to think its 'your team' or that you somehow are more deserving of the benefits and priviledges that go with being a team member

you might be an extreemly dedicated person, or you might be obsessed with FIRST as a way to avoid other aspects of your life

it all depends on the individual and their circumstances.

we should produce a warning signs list of addictive behavior:

1. do you have to think about FIRST when you get up in the morning?

2. do you feel uncomfortable at a party unless you are wearing a FIRST tee shirt, or talking about your robot?

3. do you work on your robot when you are alone?

4. has your dedication to FIRST caused relationship problems with your family or friends?

5. Have you ever done FIRST things with total strangers?

6. When you cant participate in FIRST activities do you feel sad and depressed?

7. Have you ever stayed up for 48 hours working on a robot?

8. Do you lie to your friends and family about how much time or money you spend on FIRST?

9. Do you fantasize about taking your robot to school, to work, to church, to the prom? Do you rationalize reasons why this would be a good thing?

10. Do you try to convince others to join FIRST?

11. Do you see the humor in this list? :^)

[JakeGallagher]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

as long as you dont start to think its 'your team' or that you somehow are more deserving of the benefits and priviledges that go with being a team member

you might be an extreemly dedicated person, or you might be obsessed with FIRST as a way to avoid other aspects of your life

it all depends on the individual and their circumstances.

we should produce a warning signs list of addictive behavior:

1. do you have to think about FIRST when you get up in the morning?

2. do you feel uncomfortable at a party unless you are wearing a FIRST tee shirt, or talking about your robot?

3. do you work on your robot when you are alone?

4. has your dedication to FIRST caused relationship problems with your family or friends?

5. Have you ever done FIRST things with total strangers?

6. When you cant participate in FIRST activities do you feel sad and depressed?

7. Have you ever stayed up for 48 hours working on a robot?

8. Do you lie to your friends and family about how much time or money you spend on FIRST?

9. Do you fantasize about taking your robot to school, to work, to church, to the prom? Do you rationalize reasons why this would be a good thing?

10. Do you try to convince others to join FIRST?

11. Do you see the humor in this list? :^)

1-10: Yes.
11: No.

I'm overobsessed and proud of it, too.

[Kel D]

I don't think that it is a bad thing if you are over-dedicated to your team but I think it is an issue if you want to be involved in every single thing that the team does. If you want to be in charge of everything and don't let other people get a chance. I admit at times I have been guilty of this. If a new project arises, I immediatly want to be a major player in it, almost like I don't want to miss an edxperience. But things like this can be corrected and every team needs those "over-dedicated" members, its just a fact of life.

[MissInformation]

Of course it can be bad to be over-dedicated to your team. If your grades slip or your health declines because you're too busy doing things for the team, then that is certainly bad. Back when I was president of my college's Campus Activities Board, another student wanted to be involved in every activity we planned. This student kept ignoring these pains in her lower back because every free second she had was spent working on a different event, from calling performers and caterers, to lining up security and ambulances for each event. Eventually those pains sent her to the hospital with a really bad kidney infection and it did do permanent damage to one of her kidneys.

Also, you can over-extend yourself and take on too many tasks, which often leads to a sloppy job being done because you just don't have the time to do everything. You just can’t do it all.

Now, if you're spending all of your free time with your team and your health and grades and what not are all okay, and you are completely happy doing so, then I would just consider you a truly dedicated team member, not over-dedicated.

Heidi

<==========>
Madness takes its toll... please have exact change ready. -Unknown

[ebmonon36]

As others have said, your grades and your health should come before robotics. That said, I don't think there is such thing as over-dedication, there are just different degrees of dedication. The only problem I can see from being extremely dedicated is that if the others around you aren't learning or aren't involved as much as they want to, when the super dedicated graduate from high school, the team might suffer from having them gone and disappear. Just remember to leave your team better off than when you found it. As you advance through high school, be sure that others on the team will be able to take over when you are gone. Hope that makes sense...it did in my head.
Eric

[Barry Bonzack]

This year we were a rookie team. Having less than 10 truly dedicated members, I would not consider it a bad thing. We would not have a robot if it were not for the dedication certain students put out. Now as for the little questionaire.... I did not even realize how addicted I was to this! wow! My friends were all thinking that I was going to take the robot to prom!

[Venkatesh]

The prefix "over" simply means too much. There are many people in FIRST who are very dedicated to their teams. There are few people who are overdedicated. I believe that overdedication is a problem, because when one is overdedicated, one ties their own personal well-being with the success/failure of the robot/team. Such a person can't easily have fun with FIRST, because FIRST does not encourage success, but instead inspiration.

[Jeremiah Johnson]

The real problem in "under-dedication." You have to be dedicated in some sort to be good at what you do.

[abeD]

Over-dedication can be a problem in some cases...

This is my senior year in high school i took 5 ap courses this year some being the most challenging my school has to give. This being said i spent hundreds of hours in the machine shop this year and countless hours at night here on delphi the end result being a significant drop in grades from my junior to senior year. thankfully i had allready been accepted into college but still..overdedication can be a problem...remember FIRST is just an extracuricular activity in which most of the work is technichan's work...what gets you into college are good grades and a good course load...as my mom always said, "getting good grades gives you the freedom to chose to be whatever you want and go wherever you want"

[LauraN]

What? Obsession? What?? *looks around wildly*

"Over-dedicated" is a relative term. =)

Personally, I talk about FIRST all the time. This is mostly because our team is going through some rough stuff at the moment, and there are a lot of problems whose solutions aren't going to find themselves. Often I hear people tell me, "Geez, you and Kristi talk about FIRST way too much."

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think some people are much more passionate about certain things than others. Is it bad to be "over-dedicated" to the football team? I see being over-dedicated as having a negative connotation. You can be as dedicated as you want, but when you start calling it "over"-dedication is when you have a problem. On that note, I think it's bad to be over-dedicated to school.

Don't get mad just yet! It IS important to do well in school, but it's also important to see the sun every once in awhile. I think the key is balance. If there are other things in your life, you should be fine. Personally I'm a very...intense person. Yes I may be a little obsessed with FIRST, but I'm also a little obsessed with lots of other things (like sports and my youth group.)

I think it's great to see people truly dedicated to FIRST. Or to anything for that matter. I think it's great to see students who normally aren't excited about school be excited about robotics. Do they still need to do well in school? Of course. But there's nothing wrong with having some passion every now and then.

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

as long as you dont start to think its 'your team' or that you somehow are more deserving of the benefits and priviledges that go with being a team member

I agree the over dedication to the point where no one else contributes would definitely be a bad thing. Some teams (like ours) have a small group of 'core' members that fill up leadership roles and take a unequal weight of the work on their shoulders. I can see how a this would be a problem when the 'core' team graduates. So my take on the issue:

Over dedication is good as long as you are soooo dedicated to the team that you'll prepare the team for success even after you leave.

[KenWittlief]

[boy I hate to have to do this but]

FIRST is OVER - the championship was two weeks ago!

GO HOME!

GET LOST!

I DONT LIKE YOU ANYMORE! Go find something else to do till next january
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[looks around - are they gone? now I'll have no one to talk to until next year]

um.... guys...... hey wait for me.... dont leave me here by myself

hello?!

ok you can hang around in the chitchat forum, but thats all