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

[Pavan Dave]

I wanted to add my 2cents while they are still valid.

I left 118 the Robonauts and as soon as I got to college joined 1745 the P-51 Mustangs. Upon joining I tried my best to manage school and the team but it just wasn't working in my favor so I decided to cut back and focus on the two things that I could do when I was free, and not necessarily every day for the 6 weeks of the build. Those two things I chose were website and Chairman's. Upon taking on these roles I was able to schedule times with the students 1-2 times a week for a few hours, give them 'assignments/tasks' and would review their material when we met next and continued the cycle.

Although I was not able to contribute to the physical robot, that year the P-51 Mustangs took home both the Website and Regional Chairman's awards.

The next season, I thought to myself, "I'm a year wiser" and went gung-ho on FIRST...due to my coursework and work, I ended up throwing in the towel at around the 3-4wk mark and was unable to contribute to team after. This is where I made my decision to help elsewhere where I could. I was contacted about being a web evaluator & adviser and jumped on and have continued over the past two years.


The moral of my story being, don't bite more than you can chew. I don't care if you participate in robotics during college your freshman year, just understand two things. 1. You do not only let down yourself, but your team. They relied on you, and you screwed it up if you can't handle it, and most importantly 2. getting your GPA good after screwing up costs money, takes up more time, and will put more stress on your mind then you can imagine.

TL;DR.
Someone once told me, "A smart man learns from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the smart man's mistakes."


Pavan




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