Lessons from Mentors

[Siri]

JVN has an excellent Mentorship Philosophy asking mentors what lessons we're trying to teach and how we convey them. I'm wondering about this from the student side.

• What lessons/skills, etc have you learned from your mentors?
• How did you learn them and/or how did they teach you?

Hopefully this can gives some mentors different perspectives on philosophies, especially us younger ones!

[davidthefat]

Ok this is not what I have learned from my mentors but my late coach, who essentially was my mentor:

He taught me not to give up. He taught me to never let anything get in the way of my passions. He taught me though actions not by words.

A little vague, it really sounds like the Common Apps essay topic: "Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence."

[Chris is me]

I've had some of the best mentors in the world teach me lessons I'm still realizing today. I have trouble coming up with a concrete list of values and ideas taught to me, but rarely has a day gone by when I don't catch myself using something one of them taught me. Perhaps the best mentoring is done via the head fake, something that can't truly be appreciated on the spot.

[Joe G.]

One of the most important lessons I've learned from a mentor is to take what I love to do, and spread it.

I came into my high school FIRST team as a silly kid with a LOT of robotics experience. I'd spent 5 years as the head of a very successful home-grown FLL team, and about 4 as one of the few kids who seriously acted on the desire I think we all had at somepoint to build something for battlebots. Through that, I had done a TON of research, and knew more about FRC robots than many of the senior members of my team my freshman year. I was already dead-set on becoming a mechanical engineer, and had the smarts to get there.

I thought FIRST was made for students like myself.

I was dead wrong.

FIRST's target is the students who have the capacity to be how I was, crazy-into this stuff. But once you get there, you are no longer a student. You are no longer a target of FIRST, because FIRST has already inspired you. I was already at that point. And it took a lot of effort by my mentors to show me that I wasn't accomplishing anything by continuing to sit around my team playing with robots, other than taking that opportunity away from people who needed it more. But by my junior year, my mentors and friends had taught me how to teach, and more importantly, that I loved to do so. They taught me to turn building robots, into radiating love for engineering. Which is something I try to do in everything I do today, and which is critical for any student leader to do.

Mentors need to teach this.




But that hasn't been the most important lesson I've learned through FIRST. These were not taught by a mentor, so I cannot comment on how it should be taught (If you really want the full story, PM me, its not something that belongs on a public forum). However, these things MUST be conveyed to students, particularly those like me, who come into the program feeling like a robotics-hot-shot.

--This is a competition populated by robotics nerds. But knowing more than someone else about robotics does not make you a better person, and may very well be making you worse.
--Be proud, very proud, of hard work that results in the creation of something great. Be prouder of the work than the creation.
--Do not let the competition make you feel inferior because you lost when you maybe shouldn't have, or superior when you win when you maybe shouldn't. As JVN says, all that matters is what you do in the pursuit of greatness.
--The competitions, the entire competitions, are award ceremonies, where you get to find out how well you built your robot. The meat of this competition occurs during build season.
--Respect the work of others. Recognize greatness in others, just as you would celebrate greatness within your own team.
--In other words, don't cheat, and don't play dirty. Ever.
--FIRST is about much, much more than just robots. Its cliche, but the day that I truly learned what it meant was the day I went from a kid who thought he was good with robots, to an adult who plans to keep on giving back to this program, to give as many kids as I can a chance to be as lucky as I have been, be able to discover and fall in love with engineering, and maybe become a better, wiser person in the process.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by rocketperson44

--This is a competition populated by robotics nerds. But knowing more than someone else about robotics does not make you a better person, and may very well be making you worse.
--Be proud, very proud, of hard work that results in the creation of something great. Be prouder of the work than the creation.
--Respect the work of others. Recognize greatness in others, just as you would celebrate greatness within your own team.

There are a large number of people in life who could really take #1 to heart. It's great if you know 8 million things about something, be it robots, or grammar, or history, or how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. This does not mean it is the right idea, or even a good idea, to jump in everyone else's conversations and try to shove your knowledge down their throat. I used to be "that kid." If you stop talking lone enough to listen, you just might pick up a new thing or two. (As an aside, a fair portion of the advice on this website comes for other FIRST actives and engineering undergraduates. We aren't always right (or at least, I'm probably not), even if we strive to be. I think its important to keep this in mind )

#2:
Regardless of what you put on the field come Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, you've followed an extracurricular project through from start to finish, and invested more hours and effort into something in six weeks than most people put into anything.

#3:
You probably didn't do everything right. So, that team across the aisle probably did something better than you. Go talk to them! If they did something awesome, say so! Then take pictures and do that thing next year.

[Siri]

Thanks for your answers thus far, everyone!

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I've had some of the best mentors in the world teach me lessons I'm still realizing today. I have trouble coming up with a concrete list of values and ideas taught to me, but rarely has a day gone by when I don't catch myself using something one of them taught me. Perhaps the best mentoring is done via the head fake, something that can't truly be appreciated on the spot.

This a really good point, Chris. I've found it to be a daily thing for me as well, whether it be engineering, management, or life in general. I said in the other thread that they just 'stand up an be a great project manager/engineer'. I think what I meant was they stand up as a great adult who also happens to be a great manager/engineer. It's actually the former that makes the largest impact.

Joe (rocketperson): I agree with you on everything except the "I was dead wrong" part. I think FIRST is meant for us already-inspired; they expect us to teach. I started that as a HS student as well (now they can't get rid of me.) Most veterans I know do this to varying levels, and it doesn't seem like just fluke of the system. Mentors build mentors.

[Joe G.]

Joe (rocketperson): I agree with you on everything except the "I was dead wrong" part.

To clarify my point, I love FIRST, everything it stands for, and it will be a part of my life in some level every year in the foreseeable future. And I completely agree that us "already inspired" have a HUGE role to fill in FIRST. I just wanted to make the point that I used to feel differently

I interpreted "FIRST being made for me," back in 9th grade as meaning "Awesome, a place where I can spend all day playing with robots!" My 9th grade self would have made a very, very poor mentor. Nowadays, I see things quite differently, and they can't stop me from coming back either. I just come back for much more than a chance to play with robots these days.

EDIT: An excellent post that's had a lot of influence on me, that essentially sums up what I was trying to convey: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...2&postcount=75