How has your involvement in FIRST affected your career choice?

[Kims Robot]

Well I think my story has been heard, but one of the big things I like to note is that FIRST in high school gave me the opportunity to experience ALL forms of engineering. I designed parts of the robot in CAD, I machined parts, I built up the electronics systems, troubleshot problems at competition, and programmed the robot too (ugh that was back in the days of PBasic!). When I joined FIRST, I wanted to study glaciers (wouldnt it be great to ski as part of your job??) as a glaciologist.

Anyways, by the time I was a senior, I knew I wanted to go into Electrical Engineering out of all of the disciplines because it was the one that made the least sense to me. How does that work? I was curious. FIRST taught me to learn everything I could. I felt I had the most to learn, but also had the desire to learn more in the Electrical Field.

Today Im a systems engineer. The electrical degree allows me to do everything from power design to network architecture within our Radio Systems.