F4 - Connect (The new way to get help)

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by ASD20

An example: A team is looking to design a custom drive train for the first time. They are connected to someone who has worked on custom drive train design for their team for the last few years. Over the course of a few weeks, the team exchanges CAD files and other design ideas with the person, who provides some feedback and shares some of the lessons and tricks he has learned from his own prior experiences designing drive trains. Would the advice provided be perfect? No, and it shouldn't be expected to be. However, I would say it would be reasonable to assume that the final product would be better than without advice.

So here's my worry about this. High school students are busy. My fear is that there will be students on teams needing a lot of help who put their trust in F4 Connect, and become connected with a "mini-mentor" student. Sure this might seem good at first and the student in need can get some help and advice, but what happens when there gets to be too much on the "mini-mentor"'s plate? Let's say it's the middle of his/her junior year. There are so many more important things that the "mini-mentor" should prioritize in life: school work, college/SAT/ACT/AP prep, their own FRC team, an actual job, other extracurriculars and sports, family life, and yeah, even socializing with friends. Once all of this piles up, either the "mini-mentor" doesn't have time to help the student and leaves them even worse off than they were before, or the "mini-mentor" prioritizes poorly and falls behind on their homework, job hours, or even getting out of the house to have some fun. Then it'll all fall down just like the fragile game this concept seems to be named after.



Trust the mentors that have been posting on this thread. One thing that mentors will always have over high school students is that we've all been there. We get it. Some of us made good choices, others made bad choices, and we've seen where they have led us. We've made our mistakes and have learned from them, and are now giving our advice to help you. High school is an important time of your life when really you should just be focusing on you. The social aspect of high school is just as important as the school work side of it. You''ll have plenty of time to mentor others once you graduate. But for now, don't bite off more than you can chew. Do your homework, prepare for college, enjoy your time with your family. And don't forget to get outside and have some fun. There's so much more to life than FRC.

I like it the idea, really. It's a good concept on paper but I'm afraid the execution won't be as easy as it sounds. Leave the mentoring to the mentors.