FAHA: Student to Mentor?

[ChrisH]

There is another aspect nobody has addressed. How does returning as a mentor affect the college student's professional development?

College should be about exploring new territory. While it is nice to stay with the comfortable and well known, you do not learn nearly as much. You get comfortable and then eventually you get stuck in your comfy chair and can't get out.

I recommend that FIRST students who want to go into technical carreers put their time into one of the OTHER numerous college level engineering competitions. Mini-Baja, SAE Aero, Concrete Canoe, SAE Formula One, Bridge Building, Underwater UAVs, Airborne UAVs, various sizes of robots, tricycle races, I really don't care which you pick. Getting involved with one of them will expose you to a whole new world of requirements and problems.

For example, FIRST robots have a pretty benign environment. Think about the things you could learn about dealing with vibration by participating in SAE Aero, with it's small internal combustion engine vibrating at several thousand rpm? or Mini Baja, or SAE Formula One all of whom will have similar issues.

I vividly remember staring in shock at the hole in the steering mechanism where a bolt used to be on the Mini Baja I built in college. Of course it fell out on the backside of the endurance course and while I found the bolt (damaged), the nut was long gone and there were no spares in the vehicle. We really put some effort into learning about how to secure nuts after that. (castle nuts and safety wire anyone?)

At the same time you bring to these teams a level of experience in participating in an engineering prioject that many of your fellow students will not achieve for a couple of years. You know how to set requirements and analyze the rules to figure out how to win the game. My year in Mini-Baja we never did figure out there WAS a game. We thought it was a race. Silly us!

You also have a precious comodity that most of your team mates and a good percentage of your competitors won't. A bunch of people with demonstrated competence in a wide variety of fields who are willing to advise you at no cost. It is called Chief Delphi.

So go out and start thinking outside of the KOP. If you are really involved in your team, you won't have time for FIRST. But when you come back, you will have a broader experience base to draw from and will be able to contribute more to whatever project you are working on.

Who wants to eat ice cream all the time? sometimes pie is nice too.

ChrisH

[DonRotolo]

My opinions:

The roles of student and mentor are very different. A mentor who was very recently a student may not be able to fill the mentor role, instead falling back to the student role.

The students do things. A mentor doesn't, instead guiding the students and serving as a reference or teacher for tasks unfamiliar to the student.

A mentor who picks up tools and works on the robot, while a student is watching, is taking on the student's role. Instead, the mentor should show the student what to so, then supervise them (at varying levels, usually reducing as time goes on) to ensure the job is done safely and correctly.

Yes, sometimes a mentor must pick up the tools. This should be the exception however. Also, a mentor sometimes has to let the student fail, as failure is a powerful learning experience. As I have said before, that's darn hard to do as a mentor.

If the person can be a Mentor, let them. But if they are just another Student, they should not be allowed to participate.*

Don

* Take this to the extreme: Team 9999 consists of one High School student and 35 "mentors" - is that in the spirit of FIRST?

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[Herodotus]

I graduated last year and have been helping out this year as a mentor now with team 910. I can understand some of the issues some other college mentors have had but I've been fortunate enough not to have them so far. For one thing I really only go to the off-season competitions at this point (though I plan to help out during build season too.) Secondly, the large majority of the students on the team this year were not on the team last year, so I have no issues with the students not respecting me or thinking of me as just another student or anything like that, and finally I feel I've made the student to mentor switch perfectly. The senior members spent a large majority of their time last year mentoring anyways, and we tried to make it a policy not to pick up tools unless absolutely necessary.

Finally, and most importantly, I know how to balance my time. I don't plan on helping every day, and that never was my plan. I just plan on going back to help out here and there, teach the new guys how to do some machining, and help them adjust to the atmosphere and spirit of FIRST.

I'll never really be an engineering mentor at any rate, as I'm going into anthropology, but it is just as important to teach the students the ideals of FIRST as it is the machining and wiring and programming.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Can there be a smooth transition from student to mentor, or does it need to be a more distinct change? I think it would be best for newly graduated students to take a year off, let the old relationships with the team fade a bit, then perhaps return in a new role.

That is what happened with one of my best friends from MOE, we graduated the same year, he took a few seasons off and now came back to mentor and from everything that I have seen is doing an excellent job. When he returned none of the students knew him, they had only heard that he was on the team before, so he did not have to deal with the "I knew him before" from the students. He helped lead a sub-team with great results. It was o weird seeing students look up to him and listen to him as a mentor but it works.
I think that it dose really depend on who the student is, their skill level and if they have the time to offer without hurting school.

Just my quick 2 cents

[GaryVoshol]

Many of the posts here have, in my opinion, not been descriptions of mentors but rather of helpful alumni. I've had experience with several of them over the years, and their help is generally well received. What doesn't work well is when they start to think they have decision-making authority. I can think of incidents that caused hard feelings, and sometimes wasted work or materials.

We need to go back to think of what the role of a mentor is for an FRC team. We have two basic types, engineering mentors (EM) and non-engineering mentors (NEM). The NEM's take care of things like team organization, school/community relations, travel, expenses, etc. The EM's have the responsibility to teach engineering principles to team members.

Any recent alumnus who returns to work with the team needs to be evaluated as to whether he or she fits into either the EM or NEM role. In most cases, they do not, simply because they do not have enough experience. There are teams that are essentially run by college mentors, in the true mentor sense, so that model of a team can work. But for most teams, alumni should be content with being in the position of supporting alumni. Help on work days from time to time - don't design the work to be done, but lend a helping hand to hold parts as the students work on them, and make sure safety procedures are being followed. Be there to support the team at things like kickoff, competition, and off-season events. But recognize that your role is now somewhere in between - no longer a student, but not yet a mentor. And please be sure that everything is in balance - your schoolwork, your extra-curriculars, your life outside school - with anything you do with the FRC team.

[Brandon Holley]

Speaking as a FIRST involved person starting in high school, and then making the transition to mentor in college, I have a couple of thoughts:

1. The transition from student to mentor WILL NOT be instantaneous regardless of what team you are going to (your old one or a new one). It is just simply too hard to flip that switch in your head to become a full on mentor in 1 year. The saying you always hear around here is that you start becoming a mentor after your first year in the program. While this is true, it is sometimes difficult for students to realize that they are acting like a student (this comes from observing several dozen college students help out our team)

2. Even though that switch cannot be thrown in one year, I do not think that a student should not be able to become a mentor the next year. On our team, we don't have any "adult engineers" or "adult mentors" as most people call them. We have about 15 college students who are working on the transition to mentor. The first year college kids are still in the middle of the student/mentor transition, but the seasoned veterans who have been in college for a couple years GET IT, and they usually can take the role of an "adult mentor".

3. I agree with what the mentors are doing, by not allowing the student to come back as a mentor, however it seems like the team may need a 3rd category. There does not necessarily need to be STUDENTS and MENTORS....why not have STUDENTS, MENTORS, and COLLEGE STUDENTS. If the students really want to stay involved, why not let them stay involved. It may give the mentors on the team a chance to flex their mentor training muscles if you know what I am saying. Allow the college students to lead some design discussions, or some other task, but under the eye of a mentor.

4. The college student in FIRST is unnatural. Plain and simple. FIRST, in my opinion does not have a good place for college students, which brings up what JVN said about joining other groups (like mini baja, which is awesome). However, I feel college students just need time to learn this amorphous role that FIRST leaves for them. I know that over my 4 years at northeastern I have changed from ex-student to mentor, and I think that I do a fairly decent job at being a mentor while handling everything else that goes with college.

5. Finally, I feel that being a college student does give an advantage. JVN, I know you said that saying things like "I'll be a better mentor because we're so close in age" is an easy door to hide behind, but if a college student is effectively being a mentor, I think it DOES give an advantage. High school students would tend to relate more towards a college mentor. Maybe a high school student seeing that being an engineer (or whatever you want to be) does not mean being a "nerd" or someone who dwells in basements all day and night.

Take this advice for what you will. It is my honest opinion of FIRST life for a college mentor. For me, being a mentor has been very gratifying, and it means a lot to me to be able to "payback" what someone did for me in high school.

Good Luck with your situation, I hope my advice helps!

-brando

[dachickindapit]

I did the student-to-mentor transition on my team. I definitely agree with what Brandon said about the switch not flipping. It's taken me almost my whole college career to really "get" how to be a mentor, in the capacity I originally imagined I would be. I've been perfectly capable of teaching and helping with the system that I knew very well, but there's more to mentoring than knowing a system and being able to show someone how it works and how to put it together.

At the same time, I have set an example for our students. Many of them have seen how I learned from the team activities, took my learning to the next level by going to college and getting my degree, and am now a successful engineer in industry. As I am closer to their age, many of the students seem to be able to talk to me more easily about lots of topics, especially college. The parents have also taken advantage of that, asking someone who has JUST been there, how things are at college, what their student can expect, etc. Also, several of the students have seen me go through and be successful at my now-alma-mater and decided to attend the school myself.

[rees2001]

This is a good topic. It lends to lengthy responses which can be helpful.

I know our team has dealt with the college mentor thing a few times. I feel for our team there is no one answer. Some college students are ready for the task & others aren't. One of the first things I do with returning college mentors is give them the "junk" jobs. After kickoff, all of the un-fun things that need to be done get assigned to returning college mentors. You wouldn't believe how quickly you can weed out the college mentors that want to help & those that want to come back & build robots & hang out with friends. Once they have proven that they want to help & mentor, I encourage them to get in and teach the kids, guide them, help them.

I have found that some of my best mentors are the college students that are going to school for an education degree. These students want to teach & I know this will help with their growth as a future professional. One of my team assistants for the past 2 years was a former student studying to be a Technology teacher. He is now heading off to finish his degree so I have asked another former student to fill his role, another future Technology teacher who is studying at a local community college for a year.

This is not to say that the students studying engineering aren't good mentors, many are. The engineering students just tend to be the mentors that want to "do" more than show. I let them learn that role.

Likewise I have had to ask returning members to leave. Sometimes they just aren't mature enough to have around the kids. It isn't a fun thing to do, but it does show the other college mentors that if we don't think you are helping you will have to leave.


As for the growth of the college students, I always encourage my graduating seniors to go out & try new things. Like has been said above. Join Mini-Baja, Formula 1, or whatever club/activity you think YOU will enjoy.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

If we are all about inspiring students, when does that officially end? I think the answer is never. If a student wishes to come back and mentor, we should inspire this student as a mentor. If a student wishes to return and give back to the team I don't think they should be turned away. As Eric has pointed out, Boy Scouts make the transition all the time. A scout turns adult leader at age 18 by definition. By that time, he should have received enough leadership training to make a smooth transition. In First we should also be giving that training. However, as other have pointed out, there are other things in college life that should take precedent and it is our experience which should guide that student. As in high school, students should have priorities which govern their daily activities. Family, school, church, scouts, and then First. If a college student is struggling with these demands then we could help by turning them away but I think there is something else that could be done.
That said there are other factors that come into play here. Local school district rules, insurance, team rules, social interaction with younger students, will all play a part in the team decision over returning students. Each of these need to considered in the final decision.

[BPetry234]

I kind of see FIRST like college athletics. The best thing about these sports (I'll use Football because that's what I know) is that the team is always changing. Look at any pro team, with the few execeptions of injuries or retirement, most "all stars" stay on the same team. Peyton Manning is the face of the Colts, Tom Brady the face of the Pats. The coachs job is much easier with "all star" players. Look at college teams, though, and you see much more innovation. By implementing new blood into the system teams have to adapt.

How does this relate? FIRST is an organization established to teach the future of America and the world. No one should stop learning, EVER!!!! That being said, a returning alumni could and most likely will harm the learning process of future students. The great thing about my team, 234, is the student to mentor relationships. We all hang out, act like buds, throw a few cokes back. There is still line, though. If you were to come back a year, even two later, you might hurt your team.

Does that mean that I don't want to be a mentor in the future? No. I will go to Purdue to study ME tech and then the USAF. After, I would love to teach a group of students who love to learn. That is what the mentor is there to do. If you as a senior in high school can seperate yourself enough from the students to teach instead of do to much yourself, than I congradulate you. If not, stay away and come back when you are ready.