What to do now

[Andy Grady]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Obligatory warning: School comes first.

Boyyyy is Billfred right on this one!

While the 5 year associates degree program may sound fairly glorious, I assure you its not quite the picnic that its made up to be!

My advice to you and every other high school student making the transition to college...volunteer, volunteer, volunteer.

The beauty of being a volunteer at an FRC event is that you get to see how that magic that just suddenly appears when you are a student, comes to life behind the scenes. Not to mention food...lots and lots of food! Good food! If nothing else...do it for the food.

If you do decide to go the team route in college...remember FIRST is a massive undertaking, make sure you plan your time out strongly and stick to the schedule. All it takes is for one or two miscues and your college experience becomes alot more expensive as a result of this wonderful program we call FIRST.

If you do it right...the experience of moving from student to mentor can be amazing. Just be smart about it.

-Andy Grady

[Liz Smith]

Originally Posted by Andy Grady

The beauty of being a volunteer at an FRC event is that you get to see how that magic that just suddenly appears when you are a student, comes to life behind the scenes. Not to mention food...lots and lots of food! Good food! If nothing else...do it for the food.

-Andy Grady

Yes, I volunteered this year and it was a great experience! I suggest it to you and everyone. Its a lot different than building and competing with your robot, but it is still a lot of fun. There is a lot of work that goes into putting together the regionals I suggest that you help out with that. A lot of the time the dates for regionals fall on spring break for colleges. You can focus on school work for the year and then on your break volunteer at one or two local competitions.