Grad Night or Nationals?

[Arefin Bari]

There were about 10 friends today who told me that they are trying to decide between grad night and nationals. If you were at his/her place which one would you choose and why?

Me, I am choosing Nationals since Robotics is life.

EDIT - Since one of my team member has a problem with how i worded this thread let me rephrase it a bit.

I was debating the grad night and nationals myself too when my school asked to make the first payment for grad night. and I didnt know if its the same weekend as nationals or not. but i didnt want to take any risk so i decided back in november that forget the grad night and go for nationals.

[Ali Ahmed]

Nationals, of course, because like you said Robotics is life. But isn't grad nite supposed to be on graduation night or somewhere close to it?Thats it works over here on the West Coast.

[Cory]

Nationals any day... I had tons of fun with my friends on grad night, but it didnt even approach the amount of fun that I had with people I only see once a year, or rarely at Nationals.

[shyra1353]

Im the first person who voted grad night ... wow .. But then again, I also did pick grad trip for a week to cancun over nationals (this is assuming my team does not qualify .. if my team qualifies there is like a 5% chance I can go ...) ...

but its GRAD NIGHT .. you only get 1 high school grad .. there will be nationals again next year ...

[Ryan Albright]

WEll i def would pick Nationals, but i mean its all if they are into the school activity thing.. When i went last year i personally thought it was overrated

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Shyra makes a good point, that there is only 1 highschool graduation.

However, I would choose Robotics Nationals because I have a graduating class here. Many of the people I meet and befriend may not go on to become mentors or stay involved, while others will. No matter what my friends and couldbefriends choose to do, Nationals is my graduation party.

I don't spend 6 weeks frolicing with my classmates in Speech or US History, except for the ones that do robotics. I have more friends in the robotics class of '06 than people I"m actaully close to in my school.

So, yah, definitly Robotics Nats.

[Jillian B.]

Nationals or Graduation Night? NATIONALS! Even though there are only a few (like four) seniors on my team out of nearly 50 people, my best friends are on the team. And graduation means something else to me, not only departing with the rest of the class of 2005, but departing from seeing my friends (which are mostly juniors and FIRST kids) everyday. Nationals is my graduation. I almost feel like that if my team makes it to nationals again this year, that will be the greatest graduation ever. It just makes senior year rock.

However, us New England kids get out of school in mid to late June. So, yeah.

~ Jill

[Elgin Clock]

You live in FL right fin? Why not both? Can't be that far of a drive from FL to GA.

[Karthik]

I'd definitely take grad night/prom over nationals any day. Shyra has the right idea, you only graduate from High School once.

It really depends on your personal situation, but when I was in High School most of my friends weren't involved with FIRST. Sure you spend 6 fabulous weeks building a robot, but on the other hand you spend 4 years earning your high school diploma and making wonderful friends.

Being so far removed from High School, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I made the right choice for myself. Weigh your options carefully, there's nothing worse than looking back at past and regretting missing out on something.

[jonathan lall]

So let me get this straight... you're a senior and all your friends from school are having immense amounts of fun that will be memorable for their entire lives back home, and you've made the choice to be in Atlanta tightening bolts and repairing tread with a couple teachers and a bunch of kids not from your year? The way I see it, that's like playing CS:Source the night before an important term test. Short-term (albeit memorable) elation or long-term (and very memorable) satisfaction?

I would take Cory's point as fair if my year was so cohesive that a formal gettogether with all of us before going our seperate ways didn't mean so much. But we're not. If your friends are all on the team like Jillian, I can understand that reasoning too. But for the 99% remainder of us, can you afford to miss grad night? Grad night?

[Matt Attallah]

Pfft.

Nationals for me.

Heck - on my prom night I went to the NHRA Nationals at my local 1/4 Mile strip instead of my prom!

But if it's your graduation (Not the night party - the actucal graduation) I'd have to say go to graduation. Like mentioned above - you only graduate once...

[Matt_Kaplan1902]

I see that a couple of people have assumed grad nite to mean graduation night. In FL, Disney holds an event call "Grad Nite" were all of the seniors in FL go to Magic Kingdom from 11 PM-to about 6AM with all the rides open and a concert (this year yellowcard is scheduled to play.) I think Islands of Adventure holds something similar as well.

Anyway, I'm still not sure of what I'm going to do. It is especially tough because I'm the operator for the team this year, and I wouldn't want to put my team in that situation. On the other hand I have put my non-FIRST on hold during robotics season the last 3 years, and have missed a lot of opportunities to just have a good time with them.

[Franchesca]

Its more a personal decision than anything else.

I would choose Nationals, one because I'm not really interested in going to grad-night, and two because most if not all of the "friends" that I care about are either not in my school or in the team. And most importantly of all: I'd be crazy to miss Nationals. The way I see it, going to any competition feels like a new experience each time, because you don't know exactly what to expect.

My advice is: think of which one you would regret the most missing out on, and then make your decision.

[Matt Krass]

Nationals, Dead Easy.

It's my thrid year in high school so I won't have to deicde til next year (or even at all, do we even have a grad night? first I heard of it...) but it would be Nationals.

Those I know from school are acquaintances, every real friend of mine is in FIRST, and I've going to celebrate finishing high school with friends, it's going to be with the FIRST Friends, and Nationals is just...perfect for that. So Yeah.
Nats.

[Tom Schindler]

I wouldn't give up the times i had at grad night a few years ago for anything.

i haven't seen a lot of the folks i graduated with since that night. I would highly recomend going to your grad night. It is really a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and missing the night of celebration would be far worse than missing one year of nationals.

Just one fool's opinion

Tom