Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Frankly, I'm there to try to inspire the students, not babysit someone who just doesn't want to go home. If someone's on the team but has no interest in the robot, then I put in the effort to find out what interests them, then figure out what they can do with the team that both fulfills their interests and shows them potential career opportunities they may not have been aware of. As I said before, it's not all about the robot. There are a hundred things students can be doing with a team other than working on the robot, and they can lead to true inspiration and life-long career paths. It just takes more effort to make that a reality for ALL of the students on a team.

Must be nice... I had to be there to babysit because I wasn't going to send them to homes where they'd gotten robbed at gun point the night before*. If they wanted to be there I'd try to find things that interested them. If I couldn't find anything I'd let them do what they wanted as long as it didn't disturb anyone else. Besides, you never know what's going to spark an interest. I had way too many students and not enough mentors to sit and focus on each one, if you've got enough mentors to focus on each student then count your blessings. But don't preach at those who aren't lucky enough to be in that situation.

Remember that not all kids are capable of telling you what they want to do. No matter how much you ask it sometimes boils down to finding just being lucky enough to find it. This was a student who we could BARELY get to talk, let alone tell us what he wanted to be doing.


*I wish this was an exaggeration. It happened... multiple times.