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

[Grant Cox]

This is a pretty heavy topic.

In one of the first posts, someone made a comment on advice they received from Ken Patton. I received similar advice from 148 mentor JVN (who, for those of you who aren't aware, is famous for his college mentoring experience) - "College is a great time. I would recommend it as 3 priorities: schoolwork (keeping up, etc), the 'college experience' (friends, social clubs, dorm life, etc), and then maybe FIRST. It's extremely easy to let FIRST overcome the first two, and it's important to keep things in line." It's a motif I plan to keep central in my coming years; I know the schoolwork is no cakewalk, but I would love to lend my abilities to an up and coming FRC team.

Now on Voshol's point about volunteering, I wholeheartedly agree. I volunteered at MARC over the summer and it was a ton of fun, working with the coordinators and such almost made it feel like we were our own team (as corny as this sounds), overcoming problems and trying to make everything run smoothly. With the new "district" system in Michigan I'm hoping there will be an event closer to MTU, but if not I may try and volunteer at one of the other events or even the State Final. I 100% recommend it to any graduated senior looking to stay involved and up-to-date with FIRST but without the time commitment of a team.