Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'm going to disagree again If a student designs parts all their years on the team and decides they don't like it and instead go into theatre arts I don't consider this a failing. In fact, I consider this a success. Yeah, we need engineers and it's a great profession for some folks. But if the only thing a student gets out of 4 years on the team is a list of things they don't want to do I'm happy with that. Mission Accomplished, they still have a better understanding of what it takes to be an engineer and hopefully some better problem solving skills.

I would think a student like this would have found a different path or position on the team... Why would they keep doing something they don't like for 4 years?. Someone who goes on to major in theatre arts may have spent their time in the team preparing the chairman's presentation (which is basically a short skit acted out by 2-3 people in front of judges), doing pit presentations to judges (similar in some respects to improv), or working on things like the Safety animation, chairman's video, or a season release video (directing, editing footage, writing scripts, etc). There is certainly room on an FRC team for someone who wants to go into theatre arts. This isn't all about the robot, the robot is just the vehicle you use to create the inspiration and environment to help the kids succeed.

Frankly, if I had a student that spent their entire fine with the team doing robot build activities and then decided she wanted to go into theatre, I would feel like I failed that student. It's not my job to turn every student into an engineer. Rather, it's my job to show them the options and nurture their interests so they can be successful in their career path. Honestly, there are very few career paths out there that can't have a start with a well organised FIRST team.