What member go to competitions?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

...if we have two students who are equal in everything except student a is passing their classes whereas student b is failing 2 classes is it proper to give student b the same privileges as student b? What message is that sending? To me it is sending the message that doing the bare minimum is no longer required. In this age where standards are being lowered so more people can pass can we really encourage that? I am not saying that only students with straight A's can travel, I am saying students that are PASSING can travel. Also, this standard does not have to be set in stone, if a student fails a test and that is the only grade it is unreasonable to penalize them this strongly, let them travel with the caveat that they must study during free time. Ultimately it is up to the mentors to decide if the student and the team would benefit from having that student along.

I can certainly appreciate that having passing marks is a pretty reasonable expectation; more so when, as you suggested, exceptions can be made based on other circumstances. I was addressing the idea that "the moment grades drop" students must choose schoolwork over extracurricular activity, no matter the circumstances. If your grades drop 5% from 92% because of FRC, does that mean you should be excluded? (You've clarified your position, and it doesn't look like you meant to suggest this.)

To borrow the Student A/Student B example, I'm more concerned about a case where A has good marks, a stable personal life, and no social issues, while B has none of the above, but both have made similar contributions to the team and would likely benefit the team equally at a competition. I think we ought to be assessing the benefits to the student as part of the equation.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Students on FIRST teams who are not going into engineering are important but grades should be maintained, the notion that an arts major (as an example) is somehow less challenging than engineering is very irritating to me. Just because they are not going into engineering does not mean their classes are somehow less important to them.

I only chose engineering as a specific example that's relevant to the interests of a lot of people in FIRST. I have similar appreciation for the value of other academic fields.

But again, I'm thinking of a different set of students: the ones who might not be going to university at all. (I could have been more specific about that.) While I realize that my example was a bit of a false dichotomy, my point was that for some of them, it would be more beneficial to focus on interpersonal skills, rather than academic ones.