To all students - Why do I do this ?

[Ben Mitchell]

Originally Posted by ebarker

1. If you are going into engineering or science, did FIRST help you decide, or did you already decide to before starting FIRST..

FIRST helped lead me in the right direction, but I would not go so far as to say that FIRST is solely responsible. I was interested in technology before I joined FIRST, and being on my team (4 years of high school) let me explore different options. Engineering was not for me, but Technology Education was right in line with what I was interested in; working with people and exploring the human designed world.

Originally Posted by ebarker

2. Are you more interested in the technology, or are you most interested in the application?

I don't think I understand what you mean by this, (so sorry if this isn't what you are asking) but I'll have a try at answering it anyway.

To begin to discuss technology, we must first define it. My definition of technology is anything that is designed by people, which is termed the "Designed World." Often times, particularly in education, people equate technology with computers. This is very narrow and does not take the rest of the world into account. There was technology before computers, and there will be technology after computers.

That being said, the Designed World is by definition a product of human creativity that is bounded by physical limitations. That is, we can design a car, but that car needs to be made of something, it needs space to exist, etc. Science operates through paradigmatic representations of reality, with the implicit understanding being that each new fact and each new theory comes closer to explaining reality. This is sort of like having a map of a territory, as explained by Alfred Korzybski. Science is the process of making maps to represent the territory (reality).

Technology is the practical application of that map. Science gives us (humanity) the information at hand so we can see where we can go from where we are. Technology is how we apply that map to get to a destination. To further expound the analogy; scienctific progress has made availible the information on how to derive large amount of energy by splitting an atom. There are a number of different destinations (applications) for this; we can use it for relatively clean power for houses, schools, and hospitals, or we can use it for bombs.

How we use the map is up to individual people interacting and operating within a matrix of social constructs. Individual people (since societies are made up of individuals) make the choice of where to go.

I would say that technology and the application of technology are so closely intertwined that it is impossible to separate the two in the context of this question. As a professional, my job is to teach my students how to use, manage, assess, and understand current and emergent technologies so they can make informed and intelligent, and independent and critical decisions about where we are on the map, and where we should go from here.

Originally Posted by ebarker

3. To what degree are you interested in “making a difference” with an engineering career?

I graduate in my with an undergraduate degree in Technology Education, so it isn't engineering. My professional goals are in the last paragraph of #2.

Originally Posted by ebarker

4. Prior to starting FIRST did you view engineering as something for “someone like me”

Prior to FIRST I didn't really know what I wanted to go into, I just had interests and wasn't thinking about careers. FIRST certainly gave me an outlet for exploration, and pointed me in the right direction.

I think FIRST has a lot more to it than just engineering; technological literacy might be a more appropriate nomenclature; being able to apply academic knowledge to practical applications.