FIRST Class of 2014, Where are we going?

[Johnnybukkel]

Originally Posted by AcesJames

Gregor,

Libby is absolutely correct. Clarkson has an incredibly unique setup for our FIRST mentors. Aside from Team 229, which is comprised of about 50 HS students from 2 schools, 2 HS teachers, and 20ish active Clarkson mentors (did I mention our shop space is at Clarkson too?), we have a suite-style dormitory for FIRST Alumni and Mentors. Currently our housing is a single floor with 20 students (12 freshmen and 8 sophomores), but we have plans to occupy up to 3 floors next year with 60 total students.

Each dorm room holds two people and is connected to one other room through a bathroom (2 people per room, 4 per bathroom). All the rooms face inward toward a central lounge which has (among other things) a 60" TV, a workstation computer, many laptops, some field components, and whiteboards for studying/mentoring.

Our residents are not only FRC mentors, but also JFLL, FLL, and FTC mentors on the weekends. We provide coaches clinics (our students coach other local adult coaches) to 18 FTC teams and 24 FLL teams, host our own FTC and FLL tournaments and scrimmages, and even travel around Northern NY in our robotics van doing demonstrations with quadcopters, FRC robots, humanoid robots, etc.

Feel free to PM Libby or myself with any questions you might have.

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

Just wanted to mention I'm stunned that no one's mentioned Northeastern University!! So, I'll have to take a couple minutes to try to remedy that by tooting my school's horn! ;-)

They're usually a popular school for FRC students, with their competitive Engineering education, top-notch co-op program, and significant involvement with FRC... 125 (the NUTRONS, a great team in terms of both robots and impact) are based there and they've hosted Beantown Blitz for 8+ years and will now be hosting the Northeastern District Event!

It's a great school that's only been getting better and better over the past 5, 10, and 20 years! I very highly recommend applying! The big selling points for me were their passionate and friendly faculty, great engineering programs, excellent co-op program, and location in Boston... these elements have all proved every bit as great as I thought they would.

Really though, the co-op program is what I have to focus on... Northeastern's partnered with hundreds of great companies (GE, Apple, BAE Systems, Raytheon, QinetiQ, DEKA, Farm PD, Keurig, Johnson + Johnson, Kiva Systems, to name a few) and provide really great opportunities doing real work in Engineering that will pay well too. These companies send a list of job descriptions to Northeastern every year for positions for NEU co-ops to fill... your co-op advisor will work with you throughout the whole co-op hunt process... NEU has high enough demand for their co-ops that they have 100% co-op placement in Engineering!

So, give at least some consideration to Northeastern... I really doubt you'll regret it!

Thanks for the information, I think I'll apply to these two schools as well!