[FRC Blog] U.S. Air Force Offering Leadership Seminar Opportunity for FIRST Teachers

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 5/5/15: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...rs-and-Mentors

U.S. Air Force Offering Leadership Seminar Opportunity for FIRST Teachers & Mentors

Blog Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2015 - 13:46



Once again, the U.S. Air Force is offering an Air Force Leadership opportunity for a select group of 28 FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Robotics Competition Teachers and Mentors who are helping inspire today’s youth to become the technical leaders of tomorrow. Apply by May 27th to attend this exclusive leadership seminar. The seminar is at no cost to those selected to attend, and even travel is covered if you live within the contiguous United States.

A big thanks to the U.S. Air Force for making this great opportunity available once again!

For full details, including eligibility requirements, see this page.

Frank

[bigbeezy]

ah that'd be so cool. To bad I'm not eligible as I'm not a teacher. Good luck to those applying!

[waialua359]

Too bad we are a State in the U.S., but not eligible.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Too bad we are a State in the U.S., but not eligible.

You are eligible to register and attend, just they won't pay for your travel expenses.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

You are eligible to register and attend, just they won't pay for your travel expenses.

They told us that last year.

[MrTechCenter]

Originally Posted by bigbeezy

ah that'd be so cool. To bad I'm not eligible as I'm not a teacher. Good luck to those applying!

I don't like the way it's worded. Is it teachers OR mentors, or do you have to be both?

EDIT: Nevermind, it makes it clearer on the actual application that you have to be both.

[sanddrag]

Has anyone here actually done this program? I applied for the last two years, but never heard anything back.

[zcohen]

I attended it last year.
Let me tell you, it was cool. Like, super cool. The things you saw were amazing, and the fact that you spent no money, got awesome food the whole time, even got a government travel stipend, and best of all got to meet amazing people from all over the country made it one of the better trips I've ever done, and by far one of the best professional developments I've ever done (only better being NASA WRATS. Check it out, amazing).
That being said, if you want to go to learn leadership skills, dont hold your breath. On the whole trip we only had two short sessions for leadership training. One was taught by a lieutenant who was seriously great at her job and I learned an immense amount from her. The second one was supposed to be her too, but she got outranked and we were spoken to by someone else who didnt really teach us anything and just told us his life storyish.
The whole trip was a thinly veiled recruitment tool for the Air Force. Dont get me wrong, it was still amazing, and I have a whole new respect for a lot of people/jobs, plus learned a lot, but in the end it was clear they wanted us to go back and recruit our students to the Air Force. And I'm fine with that because the experiences were great as well, but its certainly not a leadership training experience. Simply just a really cool free trip that I still recommend as long as you go into it not expecting to learn many leadership skills to bring back to your kids.