FIRST Alumni Achievement

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Philip W.

FIRST is focusing on quantity over quality, we don't really hear any success stories about a FIRST alumnus that is extremely successful from joining FIRST.

Is this true? Does anybody have any such stories? It seems as though there must be some big-shot successful FIRSTers out there. Maybe we should have a new feature on CD...

"Achievements of FIRST Alumni"

[Kims Robot]

Its a margin of how you define successful. If you look at the numbers a person who joined FIRST as a junior in 1992 (that gives them at least 2 years in FIRST), that person would be 30 or so right now. Barring any of the google-type guys, if you look at most company leaders and so-called "big-shots" they are all 40+, so possibly we just need more time .

The other issue, is that the engineering path isnt often, these days, the path to amazing success (in terms of money or fame). Yes you make plenty of money, yes you come up with cool new things, yes you have an awesome job (so you really are successful by my definition), but 80% of the time, engineers take the technical path, not the management path, so you become a great engineer, but not the president of a company.

The other thing is that sooo many of the really involved FIRSTers have gone on to either start new teams or get involved with their old teams... that many of us spend so much time doing FIRST, that we dont have time to develop great new inventions (outside of work) or start our own businesses, or make plans for world domination(jk ).

So my take is that there are probably many reasons why... but again, it very very much also depends on how you define "highly successful", I was assuming the comment above was in regards to money & fame.

[Noah Melamed]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

or make plans for world domination(jk ).

I'm still in FIRST and I have plenty of time for that

Fame... Fortune... Bleh I'm inspired and thats all that matters to me

[phrontist]

When I say highly successful, I don't know what the quoted individual meant (maybe he can chime in), but I mean they went on to work on something really interesting.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

How's this?
Sohpmore student in 1996 is asked to document team activity via video (was a member of the TV club at the time) and starts to work with team. Comes back as Junior and starts to work on robot under Raul, starts thinking about engineering. As a senior, spends untold hours at Motorola and brings in other students to the team, including sister. Goes off to Bradley University to study Mechanical Engineering, and assists Caterpillar and Bradley to jump into FIRST with both feet starting two teams in central Illinois this coming school year. The student graduates as a mechanical engineer and is now working at Underwriter's Lab.
(How cool a job is this to get paid to check stuff out for other people and occasionally blow stuff up.)

Student's name is Mark Skierkiewicz.

[Wetzel]

How about getting paid to make a robot that will open and pour a frosty beverage?

Wetzel

[Steve Yasick]

Team 85 has many great stories of success. Here is one. A student graduated from Zeeland high school after 3 years on our team. He went to U of M to study engineering. He interviewed with NASA for an internship. During the interview he mentioned his FIRST experience. The person from NASA knew about FIRST! Josh got a internship at NASA in Houston. He has graduated and now works for NASA in Houston as a Materials Engineer.

When someone says "It is not rocket science" he says "yes it is!"

Can't wait for Kettering Kick-off

Mr.Yasick

[gren737]

i got on monster garage last season in a roundabout way because of first

i got into racing in highschool because a first mentor had a racecar.
in college i started building my own racecar and began hillclimbing it in 2001
i was chosen for the pikes peak hillclimb car build because i'm a hilllclimber and i know how to build stuff
i learned all of the fabrication skills that also got me on the show thru first

and i'm a mechanical engineer designing cnc machines and i work for the company that sponsored my hs team, now i get to be a mentor.