Virtual Team Forum

[Madison]

Originally posted by Ben Mitchell
Why, because people want to focus on their grades rather than play with robots for 6 weeks?

If you want to do college FIRST, start a team. If people do not want to kill themselves in college doing FIRST and school at once: why should they be pressured into it?

What? When did I ever come remotely close to writing that? In fact, the first line of my post suggests that it should be left to the individual to decide what's most important to them.

It has nothing to do with pressuring anyone to start a team, or pressuring them to keep their grades up. It's all about recognizing that the mold isn't one size fits all and that, for some of us, things work out a little differently.

I chose FIRST over college, taking this last semester off rather than letting my grades suffer as they'd done previously. Will I be in school longer as a result? You betcha. Do I regret it? Not for a second. I made that seemingly unpopular decision on my own, and I get really tired of seeing the entire world rag on it as if it's a "bad choice."

It's a choice. Let it be a choice. Part of college is growing up. Part of growing is making choices. Part of making choices is learning to live with their consequences.

Why, if Dean and Woodie continually coax us on to be involved in college, is there so little collegiate support for college-aged FIRST mentors? Just as high schools have adapted curricula to the FIRST program that allows their students to receive credit and compete with their team, why isn't there a similar movement or support for a movement for college students?

Clarkson allows this, to an extent, in that the work done for their team can be applied toward the requirements of some majors. Why is Clarkson an exception?

Instead of challenging that convention, it's a lot easier and makes a lot less waves to give the popular answer and say, "Concentrate on your grades because they're more important." Maybe.

We don't all color inside the lines, and it's a bit tiresome to think that the only suggestion we're ever given, and the only precedent we're bothering to set is a mantra that encourages following the status quo.

I just can't understand the predilection that most people have toward choosing grades over mentorship, particularly when all of that combined energy, manpower, and experience could be so much better at really effecting change in the lives of those people.

Wouldn't it be better for FIRST, and us as an extension of the home office, to work at integrating FIRST mentorship into our college curriculum and requirements than it might be for FIRST to lose the students its invested so much in already to burn out and concern over better grades?

I just don't see this as a case of either/or, though anyone is empowered to make that decision for themselves. I see this as "why not both?" Maybe I'm just selfish.