Collegiate FIRST competition

[J-Blondie]

I spent a lot of time at the CARD thing this past weekend. I mean, yes it was small and yes it was the first time it ever made a debut, but I think it went rather well! You guys did a good job!

In my opinion, a college-level FIRST program would be a fine addition to the FIRST family of programs. As said by others on this thread, yes the FIRST goals talk about getting students into STEM careers and inspire them to pursue STEM into college in order to get to those careers. If students stop doing STEM related fun when they get to college, then what is there to keep inspiring them to become a great engineer or scientist?

Now for a quick story:
I am currently a year out of high school, just finishing up my freshman year of college. I am still mentoring team 1675 ago (my high school FRC team) as well as helping with a couple FLL teams since that is where I got my start 8 years because I went to college in my hometown. I had never had any interest in engineering until about two months ago when I looked at my life and said "I am not happy with where I am going and headed", the where here being towards 8 more years in school as a medical student plus another 4 years about with residencies and all that medical stuff even before I got an official doctor job. Therefore, I am now in the process of transferring to the Milwaukee School of Engineering and pursuing mechanical engineering instead. Now I am horrible at math and always have been, and I know that math is the basis for most engineering, which means I am going to have to study super hard and get my work done and just in general work as hard as I can to be where I want to be.

Yes, FIRST has had a hand in all this of course, but one of the problems I saw at my current college is that no one had in common with me the love I have for FIRST. At MSOE, I will have those people, and a college team to share the love with. Now, I am not just transferring to join this team, since I could from where I am at now, but I believe having the opportunity to still compete in college, as well as mentor an FRC team (along with my FLL teams and FTC and FLL volunteering throughout the year) kind of all around embodies all that FIRST is about. Yes, it is about inspiring students, but hey, I still am a student for the next 4 years right?

College is a very hard place to sit as a mentor. Some teams even make their students stay away from mentoring until you have graduated. You don't have much to offer yet as far as professional advice and you may not have as much power as you think you will have. I know I am sitting kind of in limbo right now between alumni and actual mentor. I would love to have a competition to keep me busy AND keep me involved with FIRST, since Dean has been big on keeping in touch with ALL FIRST alumni.

Sorry if this post sounds a little weird, as I think it does, you know Champs was just this past weekend and I am nowhere near recovered yet...