Attn: Present & Future College Students, Think carefully before you mentor

[aaronm_k]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

For my second year of college (this year) FIRST was a little more demanding and my school slid a little bit (I'll have to repeat diff eq.)

Personally, I wouldn't blame repeating diff. eq. entirely on FIRST: math gets exponentially harder once you move out of the realm of stuff that's intuitive from physics and into the realm of pure math. I saw a similar slide in my grades: I usually have no problem getting A+'s in math classes, but in diff. eq. I barely got an A-. I take it as a grim foreboding of my future math classes.

Originally Posted by sanddrag

For me, I can't spend my life listening to professors babble through equations full of greek letters then go home and struggle through books full of stuff that the professor was too lazy to mention. I can take it but I can't drown myself in it. There's got to be more for me. I've got to just go out and build something every once in a while. That's why I did and will continue to stick with FIRST. It is a nice break from boredom.

I will say this though: I have yet to find any extracurricular as good as or better than FIRST.

Hear, hear! Leave the math to the math majors and focus on what you enjoy. College should be an enjoyable experience whichever way you do it.