The subtle disadvantages of being a FIRST Alumni

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by Swan217

do a suicide double-major, like Mechanical / Electric.

Hey don't knock my double major, it isn't leading me to suicide it is leading me to a life of no one understanding my need for sitting in a dark quiet room for days at a time to let my brain rest.

[mrnoble]

Originally Posted by faust1706

The brightest kid in middle school wash out and become a c average student in high school.

The statistics on my team don't lie.

Latter first: statistics do lie, and your sample group (regardless of how large your former team is) is too small to make definitive statements.

Former second: I haven't seen anything like that. I've seen bright kids get sidetracked by drugs and family issues, but never by robotics. I'm sure it happens occasionally but it's not common, and likely has deeper roots.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Swan217

You want a real challenge - do a suicide double-major, like Mechanical / Electric.

I'm not sure if the CS will be a major, but it's at least a Mechanical with Comp Sci minor for me. It's actually a good combo, because some ME classes use LabVIEW, the ME math requirements (up through stats, diff eq, and linear algebra) are good for CS, and I have an internship writing mechanical engineering software. Non-overlapping majors are not necessarily suicide.

[cadandcookies]

If you aren't being challenged, push yourself. If you're bored, find something new to do. If your classes aren't challenging enough, take more. Take them in subjects that you aren't an expert in (ie, not computer vision in your case). If your extracurriculars aren't interesting enough, find new ones. Push yourself to explore and discover. Find a problem-- any problem-- try to solve it. Create something. Design a robot in CAD. Push yourself to where you think your limit is, and then just a bit more. Jump into the deep end of the pool. Get in over your head on a subject you don't know much about.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was taking my calculus course at the University of Minnesota (where I am now studying), and one of my professors told all of us (a class of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students) that no matter how smart we thought we were now, we would eventually hit a wall. Even if we could cruise through this program (which went from Calculus 1 through Multivariable, plus a potential for research/advanced classes by the end), if we were taking advantage of our talents to the fullest, we would eventually take a class, or work on a project, which would pose us a real challenge. The longer you spend cruising through life, the more difficult it is when you hit that challenge. That is when you learn to actually work. He also told us that working through that challenge, and the challenges that would come after it, were the meat of life.

I didn't (and don't) totally agree with him on everything, but that, out of all the things I learned about in the program, was one of the biggest takeaways. Personally, it took me from being a bored straight-A student to an A- to B+ student who was much more interested in life and what I was learning. I could have pretty easily slunk through high school with a 4.0 and a pat on the back (and believe me, I was on that path), but instead I took advantage of what I could learn.

Yes, I understand there's a difference in scale here, but I think the general principle of what my prof told us that day still holds true: find your walls and get through them. Break them or climb them or tunnel under them. Figure out exactly what you are made of and then try to make yourself something more. Boredom isn't a fate I would with on anyone, especially someone with the raw talent you appear to possess.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”
― William G.T. Shedd

[Angeliukm]

To the OP, be careful how you phrase statements claiming to be far ahead of everyone else. This can come across as bragging, even if you don't intend it that way, and will annoy people (for good reasons). See some of the previous posts in this thread for examples of annoyed reactions. Don't dismiss these replies, though; I'm currently a first semester sophomore, and I can already tell that they're giving the kind of valuable advice that only comes from experience. They've been where you are now, and they're trying to prevent you from making their mistakes. The shear number of these replies shows how many people in FIRST are concerned for you and only want you to succeed.

I believe that in your case, your boredom might have less to do with being a FIRST alum and more to do with your professional and research experience. Not all FIRST alumni have this problem (myself included), and it sounds like you've had some fantastic experience already through not only FIRST, but also your Boeing mentor and undergrad research. Keep in mind that it's quite rare to have had this experience, especially as a freshman, and it's something most freshmen and sophomores would give almost anything to have had. This is a good problem to have, and many potential solutions have already been posted. I don't want to repeat all of the advice in this thread, so I'll just ask again that you consider following it.

Everyone else, let's try to be no harsher than necessary. It's hard to know what you're taking for granted, and I think the OP is learning this.

[techhelpbb]

There is a lot of valuable advice in this topic already.

Let me give you a different bit of advice that has served me well.
The general vector of most of a large number of these posts is do more...do...do...do...

The error underlying this situation is a misunderstanding of the value of your work and your labor. Mostly likely a vast misunderstanding of the value of sleep as well (trust me I've worked past the point of my own safety a few times sleep does matter and often when you least expect it).

Ask yourself something: what were *you* getting out of FIRST that you are not getting out of college that made that hard work worth it?

The value of education is not that number of classes the school could force you to take to justify their bottom line once you declare a major.

As others have said - colleges will often go real easy on you the first year or so then drive you into the ground. This is not just about getting the easy stuff out of the way - it's a great business model to get you as financially invested as they can get you before they have to pay up on their end. Why do you think schools can't often agree on what is transferable between them?

My advice to you is simply this. Use this time while the situation you are in has distracted it's insanity away from you to find out what the real value of your time is. Personally I have told my students this before. I may mentor you in CNC programming but why would I suggest this is the best use of your time when I make significantly more professionally and most often do not use CNC machines to do it? I mentor it because I hope it enables my students to learn, contribute and participate. It empowers them. I hope it opens their heads to new ideas and so when they find themselves in those dark moments when they feel lost maybe they have some ideas on how to fulfill themselves.

I am a guy with an associate's degree from a community college. My Father was a guy with no college degree. Our collective work has built key parts of this World's infrastructure for more than 50 years and is undeniable.

FIRST is an opportunity, college is an opportunity and even war sometimes is an opportunity. I hope you can understand the difference between going through the motions and doing something you really value even if the rest of the World will spend it's time telling you about your faults and limits and doing things that may not be in anyone's best interest.

Engineering is not the only true path and trying to make one size fits all is bound to create negative consequences. The value of FIRST is that it encourages people to see what engineering can be to you before you get pulled back into a college system that makes the most money when you can not complete the programs but you convince yourself that you must have a degree. So you spend...spend...spend on student loans that might even survive you if you die young or in some tragic accident.

Work smarter - not just hard.
Cause slaves work plenty hard and they are still slaves.
So much blood has been spilled so you can have this opportunity to fulfill yourself, use it wisely.

"Then the joy of achievement when one can successfully take a few steps without falling. The appreciation of people around is a key component of achieving personal fulfilment. It is invariably followed by a sense of habituality (i.e. being able to perform any act e.g. walking, habitually). Then boredom. Followed by a yearning for the next horizon, whatever it may be for an individual."

[Chadfrom308]

I know how you feel sometimes. It's not a bad thing, but sometimes challenges are too easy. I joined the Formula SAE team, which is a lot like robotics in many ways, but different and more difficult in a good way. I am sure your school has one, I would check it out. And since I am on Formula SAE, I get to use the machine shop for 'Formula SAE things only'

Anyways, story time.

We had to create a Lego NXT robot in our engineering 100 class, and that was fun, but also wayy to easy. We had to make one that followed a line (line sensor and a variant of a P-loop), pick up a ball, and put in in a bucket.

I ended up throwing away all the code, and used PID loops on both the drivetrain and the arm. I ended up doing all the work on the robot, but I didn't mind the least bit. And needless to say, our (my) robot was the best by far

And you can tell the FIRST robotics kids from the other (as one of the programmers on my team says) plebs (plebeians). The FIRST kids excel at pretty much everything.

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by Chadfrom308

I know how you feel sometimes. It's not a bad thing, but sometimes challenges are too easy. I joined the Formula SAE team, which is a lot like robotics in many ways, but different and more difficult in a good way. I am sure your school has one, I would check it out. And since I am on Formula SAE, I get to use the machine shop for 'Formula SAE things only'

Anyways, story time.

We had to create a Lego NXT robot in our engineering 100 class, and that was fun, but also wayy to easy. We had to make one that followed a line (line sensor and a variant of a P-loop), pick up a ball, and put in in a bucket.

I ended up throwing away all the code, and used PID loops on both the drivetrain and the arm. I ended up doing all the work on the robot, but I didn't mind the least bit. And needless to say, our (my) robot was the best by far

And you can tell the FIRST robotics kids from the other (as one of the programmers on my team says) plebs (plebeians). The FIRST kids excel at pretty much everything.

In our MechE "100" class we had to do similar. Our robot had to follow a line on non-flat terrain, pick up some small PVC pipes, carry them through a tight tunnel, and dump them off. Our group (randomly assigned of course) consisted of entirely FRC and FTC alum by chance. We were given something like the last 5 weeks of the semester to build the robot (2x1hr classes per week). We finished on day 2, got our 100, and were done for the semester.

[EricH]

Seeing as we're going there... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG9tZ9O60dA

For reference, the rest of the competition was somewhat larger and took somewhat longer (the ones that didn't have to be picked up mid-run or nudged back on-course). I'm not aware of any other FIRSTers in the class, though. (The team I was on had one ME, one EE, and one computer engineer/computer scientist.)

[DampRobot]

I'm a freshman in college too, and I can see where you're coming from. After doing FIRST, I'm used to waking up at 7, doing 7 hours of classes, then 4 hours of FRC, then rushing through my homework in 2 hours to get in another 3 hours of CAD before bed. I became really ruthlessly efficient at getting stuff done whenever I had a free moment, and although I've become a bit more lazy since build season, my attitude is still definitely work first, fun second. I do my work efficiently and as soon as it comes out, and often find myself with a lot of extra time on my hands.

Even though I'm taking what a lot of people would consider really hard classes, my roommate and my friends sometimes jokingly ask me if I just never have homework. The reality is I already know a good fraction of the material, and know how to work efficiently. I am bored sometimes. I know where you're coming from.

It sounds to me more like you're burnt out rather than just too advanced for your peers. Try to do stuff in your major that you find fun, side projects and the like. Remind yourself why computer science is fun and worth spending your life doing. Doing that will probably make the intro courses a lot easier to sit through. Even if you already know the material, you can still learn the best way to teach it to other students.

If you really are just too too advanced, write a thesis and get a PhD. Then go out and get a professorship.

[Mk.32]

As a 2nd year college student and alumni (now part time mentor).......... you're doing it wrong.
Having a shelf full of projects, another shelf of half completed projects. Freelance work, startup work and a regular job plus all the usual school work I don't think I can say I've been bored in a long time... being "bored" any time in your life is really one's own fault (and hey sometimes being bored isn't a bad thing either).

If your school is "easy" and you're acing your classes with minimal effort, take advantage of your free time do something else! If you are the smartest guy in the room you're in the wrong room.

[AcesJames]

To the OP -

I've had the pleasure of meeting a few people throughout college that seem to fit the same description you've fit to yourself through your post. I'll be completely honest, when I began my Freshman year at Clarkson in the Fall of 2012 as an AeroE I was discouraged by that type of student. I was unhappy studying engineering, struggling with calculus-based classes, and generally unbalanced, while some others around me seemed to be bored in lectures and still produced 4.0 GPAs without much effort.

Many of the other posts in this thread have recommended you invest your extra time/effort into mentoring, engineering research/projects, or a second major, but from my experience what really makes these students feel challenged is stepping out of their comfort zone and exploring options that college life offers that are not already familiar to them. As a Freshman I made the choice to only mentor Clarkson's FRC Team, and it wasn't until an entire year later that I left my comfort zone and joined a fraternity (I also changed majors and added a minor). Colleges offer a long list of organizations that are only available to you at this time of your life, and you won't grow as a person if you don't take advantage of these opportunities.

Since you've already had exposure to some of your Freshmen curriculum through FRC, challenge yourself to step away from STEM and find something you want to learn or a skill you want to improve. It takes humility to admit to yourself that although you can ace your engineering exams, you may not possess a certain skill that someone else has. Chances are someone else feels the same way about you in your academic successes; I know I felt that way at times when comparing myself to my peers.

The bottom line is this; As you're beginning to realize, college isn't just a time to get your degree and start a career because I'll be completely honest, that IS the "boring" part of school. As others have mentioned, you're going to do a lot of "growing up" in the next few years, and this is your opportunity to learn a lot of important things that won't be taught in your classes. You already recognize that you're academically talented, so embrace that - Become a teacher's assistant for a class you've taken, become a tutor for your classmates, etc. The next step is recognizing what you aren't talented at, and after that is deciding what you're going to do about it. I would be willing to bet that you will make lasting friendships in college if you share your academic talents with students who are struggling in class, and they might teach you a thing or two in return.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by faust1706

Let me start off by stating that my life will be forever better after doing (4 years) of FRC. I made life long friends (looking at you, yash), and it exposed me to things I may have never known existed.

But there is a somewhat darker side to it. It makes students too hard ahead. We have all seen it. The brightest kid in middle school wash out and become a c average student in high school.

The statistics on my team don't lie. Yeah, nearly every senior goes off to an engineering school, which is great, don't get me wrong, but how many finish it out? There are a surprising number of our alumni who had to hit the restart button on life after high school. I'm sure this isn't the case everywhere, and it probably has never been discussed.

Allow me to introduce myself, I am a freshman at MST, it is THE engineering school in Missouri. I learned how to program my sophomore year under a boeing engineer, for whom I am forever grateful for, and I didn't stop learning there. I published two papers in the field of computer vision and placed third at the international science fair. Where am I now? Bored out of my mind academically at a supposedly amazing school. I am too far ahead of my peers. I am working in a graduate level lab doing computer vision and I am seeing what the grad students are doing wrong.

What I'm trying to get at is sometimes what seems like an advantage can be a (minor) disadvantage. Keep that in mind.

In a way I want to envy you. I came out of high school confident that the skills I learned in high school would help me get through college. I made it half a semester and dropped out. To be as far ahead as you are, to have that much of a head start. I can't imagine it.
If this is your biggest disadvantage in life consider yourself lucky.
Yet there is still one line in this breaks it all for me.
"I am working in a graduate level lab doing computer vision and I am seeing what the grad students are doing wrong."
You can be the brightest lighthouse to ever have existed, but what use are you unless you guide others?

[gblake]

My high school calculus teacher had a phrase he like to use. It was, "You are too impressed with yourself".

It wasn't a compliment.

[faust1706]

I'd like to thank all of you for giving me guidance. I needed it.

Here is where I'm at right now. My advisor told me to go for another major (along with comp sci and physics), something that I know nothing about (I'm thinking ee or comp e. I know the basics but that's it). Or to transfer to somewhere with a more intellectual environment.

I'm rushing sigep. Taking some time out of the lab. I have an interview for an internship with union pacific tomorrow morning so there is that too.

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

A big fish stops growing unless he finds a bigger pond.

That is basically what my advisor told me. I started doing research with the university my senior year of high school. This school doesn't have much to offer me, socially or academically. I'm thinking about transferring to Harvey Mudd next year, even though the atmosphere will kill my cf.

I try to mentor other teams. Last year I helped a grand total of 14 teams with computer vision, and this year I plan to solve the vision challenge over winter break as a for fun thing, and have it tested and good to go for anyone who wants it. I might do it in multiple languages, but I'll probably stick to c++ and python. The kid I left in charge of vision for the team doesn't need my help. I taught him calc 1 during build season just because I knew he could handle it, he was a freshman at the time.

As for student programs, I go to the buddhist temple just about every night. It helps me cope with having CF. We have a lot of student design teams, our school placed second in the mars rover challenge last year I believe.

I have my own projects that I'm working on, but I'm running out of ideas fast. I write the same code in python, c++, and matlab and test to see which one is fastest just out of pure boredom.

I run to fill my afternoons too. I would join the cross country team but cf just recently put me in the hospital for 2 weeks and that can happen at a moments notice, so sports are kind of out of the question. I do intramural soccer here, but it's not as competitive as I like it. I was captain of my soccer team in high school.

Originally Posted by jee7s

Yes, I can understand the boredom. I was there. But, a question to ask yourself: Can you explain how the fact that the divergence of a 4 dimensional anti-symmetric rank 2 tensor equals zero means that there is light? Can you explain why a square pulse in the time domain equals something like sin(w)/w in the frequency domain? Can you explain why a single pendulum is well governed by algebra, but a double pendulum is chaotic? Can you explain why a curve ball curves, in a mathematical sense?

oh boy, I haven't done tensor stuff in awhile. Let me dissect the question as I think about it:

Some more background: (in relativity) the electromagnetic field is described by a 4D antisymmetric tensor.

quoting my physics professor "An anti-symmetric tensor is a tensor in which exchanging two indices negates the tensor"

By divergence (the antisymmetrized derivative) is zero in a vacuum, and obviously is not zero when there is charge or a current.

I do not conceptually understand why it produces a photon, but it does. I haven't thought about it that much. But I'm only in the first physics class.

Speaking about physics, it irritates me that the Nobel prize was given to something so simple. Maybe I just don't appreciate it.

As for the second question, that is a simple Fourier transformation.

Ah, the classic double pendulum question. It is a system of chaos, to give the cop out answer, as you have stated. The system is governed by a system of diff eq. The vision program I wrote my sophomore year of high school solved a system of partial diff eq (camera pose estimation). If you're really interested, i presented this at ISWEEEP, the international science fair: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5wbgtie9vc...ation.ppt?dl=0

Of course my boeing mentor helped me with the math, it was about half and half. Neither of us could have done it without the other.

I have spent a lot of time on the hospital bed due to having cf. I finished the vision program my sophomore year in the hospital at 2am a week before competition. My junior year I missed 2 months of school due to being sick. Senior year was about a month. It has allowed me to develop academically.

Having cf greatly reduces the amount of time I have here, and I want to actually "contribute a verse" and I feel like I'm wasting my time right now.

Edit* forgot about the last question: if I remember right, I believe it is called the magnus effect. It's very similar to that of an air foil, I believe. I do not believe anyone actually has mathematically explained it, I'd be more than happy to see one if one exists though.