Attn: Present & Future College Students, Think carefully before you mentor

[keneajer]

Originally Posted by Bethie42

I found this thread a year or two ago and really appreciate the advice contained within. I'll be majoring in comp. sci. at a college halfway across the country [LeTourneau U] starting in August and am considering what steps I should take to stay involved with FIRST. FIRST will be in my life no matter what, I just have to decide how and how much.

I'm planning to lay low my first year but am still hoping to keep in touch with my team back in Oregon, help out where I can with organization and so on, mostly in the off-season. You know, the occasional email: 'How's the NASA grant application going? Is recruitment up? Time to book hotels for regionals!' and so on.

I know this could change when I actually get to college and am floundering in coursework, but I have a dream. Longview is a town of ~70 k people, with several public and private high schools, yet there are no FIRST teams in the area. I envision students from LeTourneau [an engineering and aviation college] working as junior mentors to a team based at Longview High School, funded by one of the several manufacturing and technology corporations in Longview, and under the wing of LeTourneau faculty.

I know this is a far-fetched dream, but I have seen so many amazing things happen with FIRST that I think it's possible. Last night I contacted all the STEM teachers at the high school, mentioning the idea and asking what their input it. So far one has responded with interest, and said [to my excitement] that the school had done VEX in the past.

People who know me say that if anyone can mentor a team in college, I can.
This year I started seven FLL teams in my town and mentored two of them. Coaching those FLL kids was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done, if stressful at times. I think this bodes well for my future as an FRC mentor, although I know the difference between starting an FLL and and FRC team is exponential.

My biggest asset to my FRC team has not been technical, even though I was lead programmer this year and loved it; it's leadership, organization and ENTHUSIASM. I'm so far from being burned out on FIRST, it's not even funny, but I think a year off to regroup and plan further schemes to conquer the world through FIRST is a good idea.

Thank you all for your advice.

I wish I have found this tread back when I first strat my program or started college. This was my third year as a mentor and im going back for a fourth but im planning on laying low because Im almost done with school and I would like to move on into my career. I'll still help out with stuff but I know I need to start moving on with life and stuff.

Im a big asst to the team because I been helping them with the chairmans award. Teaching them how to set up a intreiw, pre-pare qestions and how to
frame something corrrtly. One of the things I been leting the team know is that im going to be busy, but some how that happens I allows put stuff to the side and help the team. This year was different year because I had project after project in school and I got it done and all but I wish that I had lay low a year or two. For one of my projects I had to create a half an hour show so I decided to do it on FIRST. Here is the link to it http://youtu.be/7apTSmhGfFI . One thing that this show did it open my eyes to what other teams are doing. After this semseter I was really burnt out from all the projects and robotics but I look what i have done and I think I did a good job. I dont mind helping with stuff or help a student get an event together it he/she needs it.

My best friend and I and his dad where on the same team together. One day I was talking to him about school, friend on the same robotics team. One thing that he say that is that maybe there should be where a rule on the team that you cant come back for one year if your a student going into
a mentor postion because of how close we are to some people on the team (friend and stuff like that). My best friend gose to school out of state but he is still involed in FIRST. As for me FIRST will be close to me im trying to find differnet ways to help FIRST where i am going to be.

[Pavan Dave]

I wanted to add my 2cents while they are still valid.

I left 118 the Robonauts and as soon as I got to college joined 1745 the P-51 Mustangs. Upon joining I tried my best to manage school and the team but it just wasn't working in my favor so I decided to cut back and focus on the two things that I could do when I was free, and not necessarily every day for the 6 weeks of the build. Those two things I chose were website and Chairman's. Upon taking on these roles I was able to schedule times with the students 1-2 times a week for a few hours, give them 'assignments/tasks' and would review their material when we met next and continued the cycle.

Although I was not able to contribute to the physical robot, that year the P-51 Mustangs took home both the Website and Regional Chairman's awards.

The next season, I thought to myself, "I'm a year wiser" and went gung-ho on FIRST...due to my coursework and work, I ended up throwing in the towel at around the 3-4wk mark and was unable to contribute to team after. This is where I made my decision to help elsewhere where I could. I was contacted about being a web evaluator & adviser and jumped on and have continued over the past two years.


The moral of my story being, don't bite more than you can chew. I don't care if you participate in robotics during college your freshman year, just understand two things. 1. You do not only let down yourself, but your team. They relied on you, and you screwed it up if you can't handle it, and most importantly 2. getting your GPA good after screwing up costs money, takes up more time, and will put more stress on your mind then you can imagine.

TL;DR.
Someone once told me, "A smart man learns from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the smart man's mistakes."


Pavan




.

[elemental]

Hi,
I am graduating this year and I would like your input. Instead of pursuing mentorship, I am interested in becoming a website award judge. Would this be a plausible position to apply for as a freshman?
Thanks!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by elemental

Hi,
I am graduating this year and I would like your input. Instead of pursuing mentorship, I am interested in becoming a website award judge. Would this be a plausible position to apply for as a freshman?
Thanks!

Yes.

[buildmaster5000]

^^ reported

[LemmingBot]

I would really love to stay connected with FIRST during college, it has been such a wonderful experience for me and I want to prolong it. Since my school of choice is close to Boston (in Worcester, by WPI) I know that their is probably going to be a regional their I would like to volunteer.

What would be the best position for me to volunteer as? Is a ref a reasonable goal?

[GaryVoshol]

Are you a rules geek? Then ref would be a good choice to try.

But, all refs were supposed to have been selected by Dec. 30. Contact your regional volunteer coordinator to see if they still need someone.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by LemmingBot

I would really love to stay connected with FIRST during college, it has been such a wonderful experience for me and I want to prolong it. Since my school of choice is close to Boston (in Worcester, by WPI) I know that their is probably going to be a regional their I would like to volunteer.

There is a regional in Worcester at WPI, if your school is in Worcester (Clark, Holy Cross, Assumption, Becker etc.) then this would be the closest regional.

The Boston regional has been held at the Agganis Arena you can get there relatively easily through a combination of Commuter rail and the T.

Manchester and Hartford are both ~1.5 hrs from Worcester and are pretty easy drives, I would also imagine that musses to either city are available from the train station.

My advice would be to get in touch with WPI when you get to Worcester, they have a very active students, faculty, and community volunteers that run all sorts of FIRST programs in the area, they would be able to put you in touch with the right people to volunteer at whatever level you want to. Coleen Shaver (she is on CD as ColleenShaver) is probably the woman to contact for all things FIRST in the Worcester Area. Libby Kamen (Libby K on CD) is probably the person to talk to in Boston, I believe she is the volunteer coordinator for the regional.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by LemmingBot

I would really love to stay connected with FIRST during college, it has been such a wonderful experience for me and I want to prolong it. Since my school of choice is close to Boston (in Worcester, by WPI) I know that their is probably going to be a regional their I would like to volunteer.

What would be the best position for me to volunteer as? Is a ref a reasonable goal?

I think that an inspector is a very good position to volunteer for. I volunteered for my first time last year at the Lake Superior Regional as robot inspector and had tons of fun! I would be doing it again but I decided as a mentor I should stay with my team if I am attending a regional.

Just make sure you register in the VIMS first (Volunteer Information Management System)

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by LemmingBot

What would be the best position for me to volunteer as? Is a ref a reasonable goal?

It depends on what you like doing. Do you like working with teams? Go for queuing. If you're a rules geek, as GaryVoshol said, ref would be a good choice, but you may not be able to become one this late in the game. If you're like me and have a lot of energy, field reset is a lot of fun (and is what a lot of younger volunteers choose to do), plus you still get to see all of the matches.

[Aur0r4]

Having gone through this, I see some valid points in most of the posts, although I'll try to add something instead of being the "I agree with everyone" guy

I went to college 50mins from home and commuted. I hadn't planned on staying on my team (despite loving it so much) due to both schedule and wondering if there was a place for a college student, kind of echoing some of Ken's concerns way back in the thread. However, my team approached me in 2006 (my freshman year at UNH) and asked me to come back and help them with the vision system, since I had jumped in over my head with that on the Tetra year trying to get Labview to run on a PC on the robot. Yeah, that was legal before we made it not :-)

I have been a mentor ever since, and now I'm a finishing grad student with five years in heavy construction. Its been very hard to find the time, but for me, it was worth it. You do have to prioritize and there are places I wish I had spent more time on my grades than on FIRST. And if you think that is hard, try getting married Being a newlywed college student new job mentor is pretty tough! But prioritizing, time management, and being intelligent with your resources really helps you get the most out of all of it.

I do want to strongly encourage anyone who is in college and thinks they can handle it to DO IT. The more time I spend in the "real world", the more I realize that the FIRST experience and mentality is desperately needed in the professional world. The "real world" is plagued by a lack of vision, a crippling fear of failure, and the ever-present "box" that most people can't seem to cut their way out of with a torch. It sinks innovation and is the reason we are falling behind. Other countries don't have some of those issues with their engineers and builders, and they're leaving us in the dust.

FIRST forces you to work with people of very different skill levels, and for a college student that involves both engineers who know way more than you and students who know way less. You want to build character? Try mentoring in that environment. You will learn pretty quickly that humility, initiative, and care for people is alot harder than you think, and its lacking in our workplaces. Being a mentor in college has benefited me far more than being a FIRST student, and is the reason I am (admittedly) doing very well professionally and regarded as a can-do problem solver willing to tackle and learn anything. Those are things I learned through hard work in FIRST, and has changed me as an engineer. That little mental hurdle at trying new things that you have to get over as a student will come in real handy when you're on a steel beam over a river, there's a technical problem, and its time to cowboy up and get the job done! Engineering can be exhilarating, and I learned that through FIRST.

Long story short, be responsible, but be a mentor! You won't regret it! Even if you fail, you'll learn something!

[Darrellenior]

I agree it can be difficult, with mentoring in the academic world to compensate, and I agree that academics should come first. It's a good idea wherever you go, the first semester (or first year) to take to handle the program and what you can before you get involved in something to understand ** - including clubs, sports and First.

But that said, not coaching as a student can really paid off. In technology, especially, it gives you a lot of perspective. Engineering is sometimes based on the theory exaggerated and it is easy to lose sight of what really is - design, teamwork, production, testing, all the things we have learned with fun. And it's incredibly important to the side of "learning", where you really understand something of the equation to explain to someone else.

[techhelpbb]

http://www.tenouk.com/learningretentionrate.html

There's something to be said for communicating. In engineering and science if you ever hope to interface with people outside of your field you'll find that you need to be able to not just understand, but share your ideas with other people that might not share your grasp or interest in the details.

Of course, rushing your education has much the same consequences as rushing what you teach. Life is about balance and it's a pretty much a full time job to maintain that balance.

The very first time I mentored I was just finishing up my time as a full time student. At the time the most positive thing I had in my life beyond my family and friends was being a mentor. I never bothered to return to school as a full time student and I probably will not, though I continue my education with classes here and there. This being communicated I have been quite successful in my career both as a business person and as an employee.

Seek the balance that's right for you. The strength of all communities, including FIRST, is the diversity of the members.

[gabrielau23]

As a junior in high school, I'm SO glad I found this sticky thread. Right now, I am planning to go to colleges that are all in-state since I have no desire whatsoever to move out of state. However, I realize as I read this thread that if I'm going to go back to my old team (it would be really easy) once I get into college I'm going to have to change my perspective on lots of stuff. So far, it looks like I'm considering volunteering as an inspector at an event or two. Maybe I'll visit the team every once in a while, but no getting involved until after I get out of college.

[Oblarg]

Honestly, as a college mentor I'd like to weigh in on this:

This semester, I took a lighter courseload than usual so that I could act in a serious mentoring role for FRC Team 4464. The team was in great need of help, and I felt an obligation to do so. And the experience has been far more valuable than any college course I have ever taken, bar none. Yes, it has been inconvenient as far as classes are concerned; it probably will have had an impact on my grades, and it certainly has had an impact on the amount of stress in my life. Knowing all this, though, I would not have chosen to act otherwise if I could do it again. Not even close. The amount of good that this opportunity has provided, both for me and for those I can help to teach, is more than anything else I've experienced in my life.

If the ultimate result is that I need to take longer to graduate, then so be it. For me, it's not even a question if that's a worthy trade-off. Being a mentor in FRC, I can make a real difference in the lives of a large number of people. I can learn more mentoring a FRC team than I can in any course. I wholly intend to schedule my course load for the remainder of my college education around my FRC mentoring obligations, and I have absolutely no reservations about it.