Managing Grades and Responsibilities While On A FIRST Team

[Beth Sweet]

Like Billfred, I also made Deans List this semester.

At Michigan State, the professors unfortunately do not allow you to play the robotics card, they pretty much say, if no one died or came close to it, you had better be in class.

So basically, I did the same thing that I've done for the last 3 years. Realize that school has to come first and organize my time accordingly. You've gotta look at your schedule and make a list of the "have to do"s, "would like to do"s and the "probably don't hafta"s. Find a way to do the "have to"s. These include school and doing well in it. And by well I mean, there had better be at least a 3.0 at the semester end. I would put attending at least 75% of robotics meetings on that list. On the "would like"s, I would place the other 25%, as well as traveling. I know, traveling is the best part of robotics, but sometimes it's just not possible.

You have to know your limits and you have to recognize them. I am the queen of believing that I can do anything including starting a FIRST team my freshman year of college. But if things start to get out of control, you have to remember to go back and make sure you remember what's going to get you a job, and that's school not FIRST.

Long story short for those who don't want to read this whole post. As long as you can balance, go for it, but for those who can't, assess and allot proper time to proper activities.

[Chris Fultz]

it is very simple -
I require very little sleep.
And I love coffee and Red Bull

Originally Posted by Kelly

.
This is not a good example for a mentor for be setting for young FIRSTers with developing brains.

Just trying to prepare them for college....

[MGoelz]

In all honesty, I had to really consider how I did manage to pull through the build season, maintaining a satisfying GPA.

Unlike some of the members of our team, I am unable to complete my homework between 2:20 and 5:30, for the most part. Many of those days, I had winter guard practice. It was bad enough that I missed every Monday night practice for guard, but really it was about prioritizing. In my mind, school and robotics were far more important than winter guard, to many of those members' dismay. (We won't go there, though. )

In addition to guard, I would have dance twice a week, unless I was doing something that required my full attention for robotics, in which case I would call my dance instructor and she would understand why I wouldn't be there. (Her husband is in biomedical engineering, so I think she sees some of the importance, lucky for me. )

I think that above all, it is simply an opportunity to work on time management. Most days during the build season I would be at school from 7:00 in the morning to 8:30 or 9:00, or even 10:00, and once 11:00ish at night. On occasion, something would be canceled or I would have maybe a half hour or so between activities. I spent this time to work on homework. I also used all the time in my classes, working on assignments until the bell rang. I would sometimes sit in the guard room and work on it, or in the robotics lab.

Let's just say the janitors got to know me very well. I even went to the extent of stashing a jar of peanut butter in my guard locker (sealed well, of course) for the random nights I wouldn't make it home to eat dinner. I never failed to complete an assignment, although I will admit that the quality of my work dropped. I also utilized my study halls to work on some projects for my IED (intro to engineering design) class, which kept me ahead or at least up to speed in that class, which was one of my most important classes to me anyway.

I think that what helped me most, was understanding that school and robotics go hand in hand. If you really want to be an engineer or any other science/math related field, then you have to work hard at both. Your school work ethic will translate to the jobs you take care of for your team. You simply have to find an effective way to maintain your school work ethic, while devoting most of your other waking hours to another very beneficial portion of your life and studies, robotics.

The last thing that I think really helped me to succeed, both academically, and in robotics, was the fact that I more or less eliminated commodities such as, television, movies, internet usage not related to robotics, and quite a bit of sleep. I know sleep is important, but sometimes you have to sacrifice some of it to accomplish whatever might need done for your academic classes. I know that if it hadn't been for a couple of sleepless nights, I would not have turned in quite a number of projects on time, and my grades would be drastically different right now. I think that the build season is just an example of what many of us pursuing careers in these fields will experience through college, and even into our jobs. When there is a deadline, you have to meet it. Nobody is going to change it because you have other responsibilities. Juggling all of these things is one of those skills that FIRST helps to develop. The bottom line is that school will help you get almost anywhere, if you work your hardest while you're there.

I also know that having to maintain certain grades in all of our classes for travel with the team, is incentive enough to excel in our academic courses.
On the other hand, when something doesn't turn out as planned, don't take defeat; use it as positive energy to correct the problem and reorganize your priorities.

[JaneYoung]

I would just like to add a comment here.
I have been PM'd by a couple of students who have been looking forward to and appreciate the tips and suggestions that have been given in this thread...so thank you everyone.

Jane

[BBnum3]

You've just got to buckle down and do the work. It may not be fun, but it's got to happen, whether it be robotics or school related. Nights get a little later, mornings get a little tougher, but in the end it's worth it.

I found that doing homework not after 10:00 PM is a good idea. If you want to find the time to do it, you can.

For some kids on my team last year grades got better during the build season. I think this was due to a positive outlook on things caused by the build season. There's something about building a robot that just makes people enthusiastic about life.

[JohnBoucher]

Robots will consume you if you are not careful. We maintain a strict if you are not passing everything, we don't want you there policy. We stress from day 1 that you need to balance everything. We also stress that learning to balance FIRST and life is an important lesson you will benefit from.

We are run by a parents committee and not by a educator or the school, so we bring different management philosophies to the day to day of running the team. It's a tough balance. We are more performance focused with benchmarks that need to be meet, than what the students see on a day to day while in school. It's necessary because our time is limited.

We found that team activities outside of robots helps them to balance their lives. They go out as a group to laser tag, paint ball, snow boarding and go to concerts.

[kramarczyk]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

Just trying to prepare them for college....

lol...
And those 4am international conference calls

[StephLee]

My quick tip: don't lose motivation for getting your schoolwork finished. It WILL kick you all over later if you lose sight of why your schoolwork should come first.

[EricH]

Scheduling is key. I somehow scheduled my classes so that I would have lots of time to do work and a lot of my work is "easy" this semester. However, when push came to shove, robotics was dropped briefly. At L.A. I left early Thursday (shop class--the instructor was at the regional too) and came in late Friday (Calculus). For San Diego, I just arrived around noon Saturday (Calculus again--two bad test scores and it was Thou Shalt Not Miss Another Math Class Unless Absolutely Necessary from my parents). Atlanta was spring break. I also have a roughly scheduled time to work on each group of assignments. (Like right now is in my humanities-type classes time.) This keeps me from having a lot of late nights uless I have something big.

[Mark McLeod]

A lot of student-to-student tutoring goes on at robotics, primarily science/math courses, such as Physics and Calculus, but also English, French, German. We even have non-robotics students dropping by for sessions and we hand them at least one thing to do that they haven't ever done before – soldering, drilling electronics boxes and mounting sensors.

I have photos of students working the lathe dressed for a concert! Makes me wish for a formal dress night at robotics.

[pythagoras]

It's true that you need to prioritize everything, but if you just work on it you can find time to fit both robotics and school into you schedual.
I've found that there is a lot of times that you come in to work on robot, and you end up just waiting around. I've solved that issue by bringing in my homework so that i can work on it when i'm not doing anything. One time going in to the Milford GM Proving Grounds i had almost a hour of free time, in this i wrote half of a research paper. even if you are cramming at the end of a season you can still find time here and there to work on school work.

[Gregor]

I want to revive this thread with one of those frowned upon "bumps"

[arose839]

For us Robotics doesn't start til 6:00 and we get out at 1:50 so this gives us 4 hours to get all our homework done. That's usually been enough time to get all my homework done.

[pmangels17]

Shop starts at 6 or 630 for us, and school ends at 2. We have families bring dinner to the shop on weekends and we order pizza and head to the diner a lot so weekends can turn into 630 friday night to 1130 sunday night. Many of us go home for the nights in between to sleep or do schoolwork, but people are almost always at the shop. Otherwise, during the week we get home at 2 or 230, my parents don't let me leave until my homework is done, and then I go to the shop until about 1130. Also, the CAD people have it on laptops or home machines, so that end of things doesn't need to happen at the shop.

[TINCAN foodgas]

Lady Cans FRC #2881 struggled with balancing build season intensity, grades and the value of a mentor's time. We are beginning our 5th season and this schedule worked well for us last year.

Week #1 Kick Off & Design Process Sat-9am-9pm, Sun-noon-8pm,
M, T, W, Th, F 6:30-10pm
Sat 9am-9pm, Sun noon-8pm
Week #2 Th 6:30-10:00p, Fri 6:30-10:11pm, Sat 10am-9pm, Sun noon-8pm
Week #3 Same
Week #4 Same
Week #5 Same
Week #6 Mon-Friday 6:30-10pm
Saturday before B&T - 9am-6pm -a completed robot for Austin Robot Round Up scrimmage, Chairman's, Website, Animation and Video submitted on time.
Sunday before B&T - noon-8pm repairs & drivers practice.
Monday before B&T - 6:30-10pm drivers practice.
Tuesday of B&T - 6:30-10pm last drivers practice.

Saturday and Sunday are come & go as family life requires.

Lady Cans is a team of 20 girl scouts from 8 different middle, home & high schools in the Austin, Texas area.

In our rookie year, we did have a few meetings with more mentors than girls and we did have grumpy parents because the girls were not keeping up with grades, school activities, home responsibilities, etc.

This schedule keeps parents, teachers and mentors happy and puts the responsibility of time management on the girls.

Parts are ordered on Friday and arrive by Wednesday (Thank you AndyMark, McMaster).

Each year the team is different so ask me again at the end of build season to see how this schedule worked with the 2013 team and the 2013 challenge.

Susie
2158 ausTINCAN parent alumni
2881 Lady Cans girl scout leader