2014 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Toa Circuit]

Originally Posted by Loralyn P

Something small that I would really like to see (and I have no idea why they didn't do it this year) is clarification on the rules of the Dean's List interview, and a better feedback sheet. Currently, there is no mention of the time limit in the Dean's List section of the Administration Manual, and the feedback sheet was the most minimal thing I've ever seen. At least put in a "you can improve on" section!

This.
I had a whole one comment on my sheet... It was along the lines of 'keep spreading FIRST'. :/

I do have to say though- the whole interview process seems kinda a lottery. I mean, an essay and a five minute interview (that from what I could tell, was just to serve as clarification for details)? How much does that really tell? Unless you are going solely by statistics (number of teams started, assisted, what have you)...

In 4H (in my state), for the highest awards we get we have to keep thoroughly documented records, which are assesed at a county level, then a state level, and then there is an (approximately) hour long interview to complete, that gets recorded and debated over several times to select ~30 students from the state to send to congress.

Something a little more rigorous seems due if the award is truly to select the absolute cream of the crop...

(This isn't to say the winners of this years' award didn't earn it. I don't know if they did or not. I'd enjoy being able to read some of the essays that get submitted! I think they gave a brief summary upon presentation in 2012, IIRC)

Other things that are negative... I'm not too keen on the PR that FIRST is pushing. FIRST drew me in because it wasn't about pop culture, political correctness, and almost everything that was pushed during the closing ceremonies. It was about promoting producerism; getting students involved in the real world. Now it's too much about inspiring. It's a bit like setting gasoline on fire. It makes a nice big pretty fire that a lot of people will notice, but you could be using that gasoline to power your car and get you somewhere. People also notice fast cars. I really don't think we need to make FIRST loud- we need to make it profound and visible. People need to be joining this organization for the right reasons- and I personally think that if your main reason for joining is because a pop star endorses it... you're doing it wrong.

But that's the nice thing about FIRST- ultimately, the teams make up the heft of the organization and are the real face of FIRST.

Also, integration between TBA and FIRST scoring? YES PLEASE!