What are your Mentor Experiences?

[Hot_Copper_Frog]

My first experience with the challenging past time that is mentoring was while I was still a student on HOT Team 67. As a part of my volunteer work, I mentored one of our FLL teams during the FRC offseason. One thing took me completely by surprise – nobody actually knew what they were doing. All of the adults were mostly stumbling through this FIRST experience while trying to impart knowledge and wisdom to their students. But when we went to state championship and I got to experience the rush of watching my students succeed, I was hooked. Participating is fun, but mentoring is just so much better.

I made the mistake of jumping in as a mentor as a freshman in college. I went to Michigan Tech – going from being a member of a hall of fame team to mentoring two teams (857 and 2586) in the wilderness that is Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. There’s no industry anymore, low population, low income, and small schools. But $@#$@#$@#$@# if yoopers aren’t the nicest people I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. I remember rolling in there expecting to impart all of my expansive FIRST knowledge and transform the programs into hyper competitive success stories.

Needless to say, that is not what happened.

During my time in the UP, I learned how incredibly challenging it is to sustain a thriving FIRST program in rural, low resource areas. How nobody is going to respect or listen to you until you’ve earned that right. That being a mentor is less about building robots, but more about helping young people develop and grow – which is really hard when you’re 19 and have no idea what you’re doing. I learned that not all teams have access to a giant flagship sponsor, or a team of dedicated engineers, or school districts that are happy to work with you. That to be a good mentor, you have to take care of yourself first (AKA get more than 4 hours of sleep a night, actually study for exams, relax once in a while, etc.) before you can worry about others.

After eating slice after slice of humble pie for four years, I graduated and got a Big Kid Job in south east Michigan. I knew that I never wanted to leave FIRST, so I sat down at my computer and looked for the four closest teams to my office. I sent them all an email detailing what skills I had to offer, and that whichever team emailed me back first would have a new mentor. A mentor from Frog Force emailed me back – kid you not – less than five minutes later and I began my whirlwind journey with team 503. By the time I had gotten to Frog Force, I figured I had this whole mentor thing figured out. I would be working with a world class team again, and it would be smooth sailing just doing what I love (mostly Chairman’s work).

Once again, that is not what happened (I know – sensing a pattern yet?).

Once I started looking into all of the things that I would be involved with, I was tired before I even started. I swear this team has something going on every week – Jr. FLL, FLL, FTC, FRC teams to mentor. Offseason events to run. A giant event at Comerica Park. Parades. Demos. All of the work we’re doing in Detroit. This was going to be the opposite of smooth sailing! There was so much to do! Turns out, mentoring is hard no matter where you go.

Am I perpetually tired? Yes. But I wouldn’t have it any other way at this point. Now that I’ve had seven years of mentoring under my belt, I can say for sure that I still don’t know what I’m doing. None of us really do. I’m constantly surprised by how much trust and faith these students put in me – sharing about their lives and asking for help. Allowing me to help guide their path through and out of school. Their victories have become my victories, and their disappointments are mine too.

That’s what being a mentor means to me – when my team wins or loses, I have no personal stake in the matter. But I feel the excitement or the sadness that THEY feel. It’s not really about me anymore, and it’s really really rewarding. I keep a shoe box at home with all of the thank you notes and mementos from students over the years. When things get hard or I’m frustrated, I pull out that box and read through them. Their stories and gratitude for the role I played in their lives reminds me why I do this and why I should keep going. And it reminds me that I need to thank MY mentors more often – the ones from 67 who inspired me to keep going, all of my co-mentors from 857 and 2586, and the ones that I work with now on 503. I have and continue to learn a lot from all of them – hopefully that never stops.