What Happens To Your Attitude Towards Gracious Professionalism When You Leave FIRST?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Yup.

And college mentors do certainly add a bit to the team dynamic.

What I'm wondering about is the disconnect that does happen with some college mentors. Here's the deal - if high school students (and younger) are exposed to the talents, ideas, hands-on applications of engineers and other technical and professional mentors and they are inspired by what they observe, participate in, experience in FIRST - then how does a disconnect happen to the point where Gracious Professionalism is no longer part of their attitude when approaching real life problems and situations? If there is a disconnect then what is causing it and why? Is its potential impact not valid or just temporarily put on hold while college happens? Because if college mentors dismiss it or diss it, then I think there is a disconnect somewhere, even if it is just a few.

I think part of the disconnect can occur on days when the college student is having a particularly rough day/week (Midterms and Finals come to mind) Another portion could be a very pessimistic view of their future, in engineering many people who have a decade of experience cannot get a job right now, what chance do I have?

Personally I make a point not to let my personal pessimism and cynicism show to a student until I trust that they know me well enough to see I am having a bad day.

As for what can be done to correct a disconnect, should it be discovered in college age students? The simple approach would be to remind engineers that it isn't always just the high schoolers who occasionally need inspiration, college students and fellow mentors often need just as much inspiration from time to time.