Society of College FIRST-a-holics

[Matt Leese]

At Nationals this year, there was a get together of college students on Thursday night at Pleasure Island. Out of that impetous for that idea came the idea for an organization of college students in FIRST. Hence the Society of College FIRST-a-holics. This idea generally comes from Joe Ross, Ken Leung, and myself.

The general premise is to make it easier for college students to be involved in FIRST. This will definately involve supporting the creation of new college teams. Also more get togethers such as the one at Pleasure Island are definately something we want to work on.

At the moment we're primarily looking for feedback of any kind. Whether people support the idea. What our goals should be. What activities we should participate in.

We'd also like those eligibile to please sign-up. That will help us gauge interest at the least. All forms of comments are welcome.

A web page has been created and is available at: http://www.rit.edu/~msl8101/scf/

I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions.

Matt

[Ken Leung]

We know how hard it is to concentrate in both college and FIRST at the same time¡K Believe us, we¡¦ve been through it. This is the main reason why we started SCF. We want to encourage FIRST participants to continue in FIRST even after high school because we know it¡¦s worth spending the extra year or two to fully enjoy the whole experience¡K 4 years of high school just aren¡¦t enough! ;-)

The simple reason to sign up is that we are hopping all these FIRST college students can keep contact from now on, so that we can share this wonderful/stressful experience together, even if it¡¦s just talking to each other online, or sharing something through e-mails, or meeting each other in competitions¡K Well, it¡¦s just cool to see who else around the country enjoy FIRST as much as us do after high school¡K

Another reason we want people to sign up is that SCF is still in its very first stage of development. If you look at the ¡§about SCF¡¨ or ¡§about us¡¨ page, you will see the 7 goals we established as the foundation of what we will be doing in the future. So, we will need every suggestions and comments we can get to approach each of those goals, and possibly add more goals in the future that will benefit FIRST college students and/or college sponsored teams.

So, please feel free to sign up, and get other FIRST-a-holics who you know are going to college next year¡K Spread the message around teams you know... We would like to upgrade as many FIRST-a-holics into college FIRST-a-holics as we can. ;-)

[Joe Ross]

um...um... I don't think I have anything as profound as those two. I guess I'm the quiet one.

Between the three of us, we've done just about everything. Sneaking into kickoff, starting a team, transitioning from a student to a mentor on the same team. If you are at all interested in continuing FIRST in college, sign up and let us know.

Feel free to contact any of us at any time. Being college students, we know what wierd hours are

[Lora Knepper]

Well, that and the fact you've got the eastern and pacific timezones covered I'm intregued, so I'll sign up. A friend and I were working on a very similar project...I want to see just how similar

~ lora

PS - Matt...please make the site 800x600 friendly.... *twitches at the amount of side scrolling*

[David Kelso]

Since I do not fit your criteria for membership (left college a long time ago). I will make a post here... One of the most difficult problems that we run into with college students is funding their transportation to events. Let's face it, most college students are not rolling in extra cash, nor do they have the time to do fundraising.

What solutions have your members found for this problem?

[Jessica Boucher]

Originally posted by David Kelso
Since I do not fit your criteria for membership (left college a long time ago). I will make a post here... One of the most difficult problems that we run into with college students is funding their transportation to events. Let's face it, most college students are not rolling in extra cash, nor do they have the time to do fundraising.

What solutions have your members found for this problem?

Ive actually already talked to Matt about this, and hopefully he'll take me up on it (puh-lease, Matt?)

Im not so sure about funding yet, but I was actually thinking about keeping a close eye on airfares, about maybe making a list of possible locations of people donating their space for college students to crash for the nite (like the Kelso inn ), and for people willing to donate transportation, if need be.
Maybe, if the demand gets high enough, we can start instituting group rates....

I dont know about the rest of them, but being teamless has me really revved up about getting my butt to FL in 2002...I really want to see IT!

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by David Kelso
Since I do not fit your criteria for membership (left college a long time ago). I will make a post here... One of the most difficult problems that we run into with college students is funding their transportation to events. Let's face it, most college students are not rolling in extra cash, nor do they have the time to do fundraising.

What solutions have your members found for this problem?

There might not be a perfect solution for this... Like me, for example, probably won't be going to Florida next year because I won't have any money for it.

But nothing is certain this far away... I already talked to another team who's willing to find me cheap tickets and let me stay in their hotel room...

So, since SCF is probably a non-profitable organization, the most we can do is help out by getting cheaper rates like Jessica suggested, or contact teams near the college students and see if they have some extra room for going to events, or if they have extra money to sponsor an airplane ticket...

Maybe we will be able to start a drive to get college students to National...

This is one of those thing we need help in...

[Christina]

I remember hearing about this idea at Pleasure Island, and I also remember saying that it sounds like a good idea. Good luck guys, I hope you can make it work. I already signed up. First we're no longer "others" on CD, next a society for us. We're moving up in the world!

~Christina ºoº