FIRST and good grades

[Anne Lam]

I know there had been discussions on Chief Delphi where students say that their grades fall during robot season because of one reason or another.
However, to my surprise when I got my report card earlier this week, the only time I ever got a decent grade in math was the quarter during robot season (I'm not going to tell you what I got before and after but it was a big difference ). I don't think it was because the lessons were easier, we acutally had a heavier work load because the teacher wanted to finish the text book. And after robot season, I got back that oh so familar letter I see so often on my report card. So I was wondering has this happened to anyone else, where doing FIRST has actually been a positive thing for your grades? I am not only talking about math, but other subjects as well.

[Amadkow]

My grades are usualy low but when we started the robot my grades went up.

[Joe Ross]

I've had it both ways. In both high school and college my single best semester has been during spring, during the robot season. I've also had my worst semester during FIRST season.

It is a function of how much time and effort you put into your schoolwork. FIRST makes the time part harder. The effort part is up to you.

[Andrew Dahl]

I teach Tech Ed- and the students that I had- thier grades overall have increse a full letter grade-
my biggest improvemnt was a kid who was on a attendace pland academic coaching the full intervention package-

came on the team and wne from 0 to 60 in two weeks-
I got called by his parents last week after report card came out and he went from failing classesin the fall to honor roll in the spring

but it was not me-
it was the interest and the discipline that doing the robot and is asociated projects gave him incentive to do better


dahl
team 497

[Joel J]

They went up for me...

Went from general honors in the second marking period, to high honors in the third. My GPA went up about 0.3 points......

[ColleenShaver]

I'd have to say in high school it stayed rather steady.. but desire to attend school was much increased because I couldn't go to FIRST if I didn't go to school..

In college.. since both are hefty workloads.. when I was @ BU it helped bring it down.. this year at WPI though it didn't seem to be a big problem (3 classes @ a time during FIRST rather than 5 like most colleges).... The problem w/ college is that missing classes due to travel to competitions is much harder to make up and work out w/ professors than in high school.

[A. Leese]

My grades..contrary to my parent's thoughts..stayed the same during the FIRST season, even though I often gave up my homework time to go to meetings. Usually I would bring my homework with me and work on it (often with the help of someone who had taken the particular class on my team) during any free time I had. My chem grade improved after nats, but that's more based on my study habits in general improving and had nothing to do with FIRST. My parents also threatened to keep me from FIRST if I got low grades, so I worked hard to get the good grades.

~Angela

[Carolyn Duncan]

This past season wasn't bad for me. It was my rookie season so I really didn't know what to expect. FIRST season came at a perfect time for me. We had block scehduling so our second semester classes were just starting in January. Light workload, mostly review, the tough part was getting caught back up after nats. That wasn't too bad though. I got lucky with scheduling and we had report cards that week so most of the harrd stuff was done the week before so the teachers would have time to get everything graded. Most of my teachers let me do things before wee left,which was nice. My grades didn't go down, they stayed about the same, the difference was I learned hoow to get by with the same grade and putting less effort into work.
C~ya
Carolyn

[Jessica Boucher]

I made the point of at never losing my honor roll status...and usually that was honors, not high honors. I felt that was a semi-reasonable goal to handle, because I was doing 3 hours of FIRST a night and then going for a 2-3 hr rehearsal for whatever show I was in....I still consider myself darn lucky to have stayed in honor range for the 3 years I did theatre & FIRST together.

[Anthony S.]

During the six weeks I had A's and B's. I was trying to get straight A's which I haven't had since 5th grade. But when it came time for the trip. I was very irresponsible. I didn't make up some of the work and didn't go to my Geometry teacher and get the lesson I missed and ended up getting a horrible grade on a test and I got my first F. I still came out with a 78 for the semester so it wasn't that bad. I plan to do much better next year.

[David Kelly]

I had bad grades in a couple of classes this year, speciffically Spanish and English. I don't think that they were a result of my huge involvment in FIRST. I have never gotten good grades in any foreign language, including middle school when I had no idea of what FIRST was. And I have never liked English. So there's the scoop on my grades. Luckily this was the last year of foreign language for me.

[Chris Orimoto]

Here's my experience through the whole thing...

Whenever I got into robotics season, my grades almost ALWAYS fell. I don't blame robotics for it, because it is my own stupidity that causes it. I seem to neglect doing homework the later and later I stay out at night...and especially when there's the choice of chatting with fellow FIRST-ers during season and posting on THIS forum matched up with doing some homework...it's only "practical" for me to choose the fun stuff.

I don't regret my grade point dropping because of it (actually it sounds like a big deal, but I only really dropped like 0.1), though a higher grade point COULDN'T have hurt. Anyway, it's just where sacrifices go... I mean, I'm sure there are those who can fully commit to this project AND still maintain a high grade point... but not everyone "chooses" that path.

Just my personal thoughts...

Chris

[Matt Leese]

In high school, there was always a significant drop in my grades during FIRST season. But just for the quarter when construction took place. This year, in college, my grades stayed just the same during the quarter (different version of quarter) when construction was going on. According to my parents, FIRST helped "focus" me (I don't know, it's what they told one of the professors from RIT). There was a significant influence on my grades from travel. That happened in spring quarter and there my grades were affected. SO I guess my biggest problem was a combination of organizing the travel, actually missing class, and then also recovering from the trips. None of that made it particularly easy to keep my grades up but I could be doing a lot worse so I'm not complaining.

Matt

[mike o'leary]

strait c's across the board...before, after, and during robot season