FIRST Alumni: How's College Going?

[Ian Curtis]

Perspective Post-College:

I graduated from high school in 2009 & ended up at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I majored in Aeronautical Engineering, and while I was there my extracurricular was AIAA Design/Build/Fly . We built an R/C airplane every year to compete in the AIAA sponsored challenge, but we built many other airplanes to entertain ourselves up in our lab. I spent the summer following my first year working at a local museum, mostly pushing paperwork for their annual classic car consignment auction. The summer after that I was an intern at Boeing Commercial Airplanes working in aerodynamics. I followed Chris Pinecone to approximately two 2791 meetings, but mostly just watched FRC from along from the sidelines.

After I graduated in 2012, I came back to BCA full time. I reached out to FIRSTWA & got connected with 1778, and now I've been here so long all the freshman from my first year on the team have graduated. If you take a break from FIRST in college, don't worry about having a hard time finding a team to help out down the line. Anyone with questions about RPI/Boeing/Not doing FIRST in college/etc, shoot me a PM.

[ThaddeusMaximus]

Another RHIT Student here. Going into the second of three-four years of college soon.

FIRSTly... Let me just say FIRST and living on a farm make mechanical engineering come second hand. And let you know of so many seemingly simple things that blow your friends' minds (whoa, that's how roller chain works? You mean motors don't provide the same torque at all speeds? Whaddayamean you've been welding since you were ten? Voltage drop is a thing? Mutual inductance happens? How do you know ten programming languages? HOLY **** THAT IMPACT DRIVER IS LOUD)

I've been getting heavily involved in Formula SAE. In some regards it's more fun than FIRST (Longer build span means more interesting and detailed parts, more room for optimization and validation, and heat, vibration, and noise are serious issues you don't encounter in FIRST)... but in other regards it's a little less (there's a lot of room for creative solutions/optimizations, but the end goal remains constant). There should be a link in my description with what I've been up to...

Student design competitions at a college level are more funner though because there's no pesky adults telling you to go home and get some sleep or do your homework I don't see an issue with staying up until 5 working with the squad...

A lot of my buds have been trying to recruit me to mentor for 5188 but I don't think I'll be making the plunge. But I live in the BIC so it's not like I don't run into them and lend a hand on odd occasion.

I'm also supposed to be a Solidworks TA and a ME tutor this year so that's cool

Remember kiddies, "stay in FIRST, kinda do school, eat your vegetables"

[kristinweiss]

I graduated from high school in 2014 and am about to start my third year at Georgia Tech majoring in Biomedical Engineering with a focus in undergraduate research. After taking a semester off from robotics, I came back to mentor my old team in the spring of 2015, and as challenging and time consuming as it is to be a college mentor, it's one of the best decisions I ever made. At GT, I'm involved in the GT1000 Team Leader program and currently serve on the advisory board. Outside of GT, I work in a biomolecular nanoengineering lab doing research on the biomedical applications of DNA origami. I also serve as the student director for Georgia BEST Robotics and a lead project judge at the regional and state level of FLL in Georgia.

[seg9585]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

Perspective Post-College:

I graduated from high school in 2009 & ended up at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I majored in Aeronautical Engineering, and while I was there my extracurricular was AIAA Design/Build/Fly . We built an R/C airplane every year to compete in the AIAA sponsored challenge, but we built many other airplanes to entertain ourselves up in our lab. I spent the summer following my first year working at a local museum, mostly pushing paperwork for their annual classic car consignment auction. The summer after that I was an intern at Boeing Commercial Airplanes working in aerodynamics. I followed Chris Pinecone to approximately two 2791 meetings, but mostly just watched FRC from along from the sidelines.

After I graduated in 2012, I came back to BCA full time. I reached out to FIRSTWA & got connected with 1778, and now I've been here so long all the freshman from my first year on the team have graduated. If you take a break from FIRST in college, don't worry about having a hard time finding a team to help out down the line. Anyone with questions about RPI/Boeing/Not doing FIRST in college/etc, shoot me a PM.

Nice! I too went to RPI (graduated in 2008) and was a member of Design Build Fly 2006-08, ended up at Boeing as well (but in BDS southern California). Did participate in FRC in college, however, as part of the Introduction to Engineering Design class (IED) with Larry Ruff and then again as a mentor for Albany High School.

Funny how people end up following similar paths!

[Kevin Leonard]

I graduated from Team 20 in 2014, and now I'm going into my third year at RIT.

I'm a member of the RIT Honors Program, I play ultimate in college, I started (then left ) the RIT Battlebots team, and I mentor 5254 when I can.

I had an internship at Beech-Nut Nutrition between my freshman and sophomore years, and this past summer I took some summer courses to make my life easier while at RIT.

I also have a coop lined up for next spring/summer at Borg-Warner Morse in Ithaca, NY.

My FIRST experience has been enormously helpful in college, from being far ahead of many of my classmates in terms of CAD and machining skills, to interviewing with companies for internships and coops- talking about your first-hand experience with engineering in teams with enthusiasm in your voice is killer in interviews.

My piece of advice is to prioritize and not stretch yourself too thin. Last spring I was killing myself doing classes, Battlebots, FRC, ultimate, and still hanging out with friends, and I got sick a few times and my grades suffered.

You have to prioritize your schoolwork, even when there's so much else awesome to do.

[Shrub]

Graduated in 2015, just transferred to a new school. I'll be in my second year of college. I'm not really sure what I'm doing right now, but it's pretty far from STEM - I'm looking at cultural/ethnic studies. I wanted to go into Chemistry for two weeks and then I took precalc and there went that dream. I just finished a 12 week summer internship in the city I live in where I was placed in a public school office and did community event outreach.

My freshman year, I took a break from robots and volunteered at one event. This was probably best for my mental and physical health. My freshman year was my first time living away from home and it was a pretty weird transition on top of going to college and having to cook for myself. Being in FRC isn't something you have to continue doing in college - I know plenty of people who didn't. I'd strongly recommend taking a break. I was in a ton of student groups that were housed in my school's Multicultural Center since thats where I felt safe. I plan to continue that at my new school.

I'm currently in between mentoring for two local FRC teams in the area on top of doing primarily FTC volunteering. I also got to participate in Ri3D which was super fun and recently gave a presentation on diversity/inclusion in robotics that went super well.

My advice: bad grades aren't the end of the world. I had a really tough time transitioning from high school to college and ended the year with a less-than-stellar GPA. Take your time, retake classes in the summer if you have to have that dazzling above 3.5 GPA (or need the class), and withdraw a class if you have to. They give you that option for a reason. Also, minor in something fun! Take classes outside your comfort zone for your prerequisites - I took a Women's Studies class for a credit on technology and it was super fun.

[LeapsAndBowns]

I graduated from FRC team 2903 in 2011 and then attended Illinois Institute of Technology. I majored in physics education and graduated with my degree and teaching license in May. While at Illinois Tech, I was heavily involved in two extracurriculars: Our collegiate robotics team and our student newspaper. I held an internship at a science museum for 4 years. I've also been involved in some way with the majority of Chicago FTC and FRC events since I moved here.

I did mentor for two seasons while I was in college. Myself and a friend started FRC 4551, which was a community team in the near southwest side of Chicago. It was a lot of fun, but it was stressful to run a team where the two primary mentors were college students; we ran out of funding after our second year and folded.

We're happy that, during the time the team existed, we had a 50% match win percentage, won rookie highest seed, had a 50:50 male:female population, and all of our students went to college after graduating. Though difficult and almost a relief when we decided to not compete after 2014 when most of our students graduated, It was an incredibly valuable experience for me. As an education major, it allowed me to create experience that helped me in classes, student teaching, and now securing a job in a school where I'm helping out 2 FTC teams, 1 FRC team, and an FTC-focused class. I'm also completing my Master's Degree in STEM Education this year.

If anyone has questions about Illinois Tech, majoring in physics or education, or becoming a teacher, feel free to message me!

Myself and a few friends are also currently starting the FIRST Illinois Robotics Alumni Association; FIRST Illinois wants to keep track of our alumni, and our group of friends noticed that a lot of our best friends are also alumni and we volunteer together and have a lot of fun together outside of robotics. We wanted to create a community where we can see where our alumni end up, host networking events, volunteer together, and generally make friends with other alumni, which has been really fun so far. If your an alumnus of an Illinois team or a FIRST alumnus living in Illinois, sign up here.