Freshman Positives

[Matt Leese]

Freshmen, like all people, come in good and bad varieties. The issue normally is that given that freshmen are younger, there is a tendency to be immature (not that all freshmen or younger are immature and not that all those who are older are mature; I've met adults who are less mature than high school students).

Immaturity can be difficult to deal with but there are ways to handle it. Normally, these issues would mainly fall to the mentors to deal with. One of the key things is to keep everyone busy, even if it's with fairly simple tasks. Start with simple tasks and after they've mastered those, build the tasks into more complex ones. This is good for everyone and has the advantage of taking those who are immature and helping them build maturity.

Now, that said, on our team, we have exactly one senior. We have a good number of freshmen and because of the way the school is setup, we have a good number of students who would be middle school aged. Some of our best workers are those who are freshmen or middle school students. Frankly, I didn't know that they were that age until I asked. So being a freshmen doesn't mean that you're going to just get in the way but it can take some more effort to make sure you don't.

Matt