FAHA: Student to Mentor?

[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.

[IKE]

One issue we had with a student that wanted to come back to help was that he was very "productive" while a student. When he came back he tended to want to do more than just mentor. (Our team sturcture is the kids do almost all of the fabricating). We had to pull this student aside and teach him what mentoring is/means for our team. A year later things are working much better. He has also learned that he should be involving himself in other college related activities to round out his college experience.

That being said another one of our mentors is a past alumni that came back after college. There was enough seperation there that all of the students were new and she could get the repect of being a mentor instead. Only having seen those examples, I could understand a rule of requiring a new college grad to sit out one year.

On a slight tangent. Many universities do not allow alumni to become professors at the university they got their PHD because of imbreeding identical thought processes. If you take a HS Senior from your team and immediately bring them back, they may be more likely to stick with the same habits as opposed to learning new things.

One suggestion for Freshman that still want to be involved, why not get on a regional (or District in Mi) planning committee. This should help you get a whole new appreciation of FIRST and give you brand new skills.

[Cory]

I'm on the side of the team leaders here. I can attest from personal experience that it is awkward returning to your high school team as a college mentor. You're not far enough removed from having been a student for all the other students and adults to treat you as a mentor and respect you as such.

You can't go from joking around with your buddies as a student to suddenly being in charge of them a year later. The social dynamic there is just really difficult. In addition teachers and mentors will be used to you as a student and it will take awhile for them to adjust to you now being one of them.

I know for me moving to another team worked out well. I was immediately accepted by the kids as a mentor, regardless of the fact that I was barely older than some of them. I never really have found being a mentor awkward because of age.

I would definitely caution you to think long and hard about whether or not you have the time to mentor though. School is more important than robotics, and it's very easy to get sucked back into FIRST and lose sight of that. You don't want to make that mistake.

[Akash Rastogi]

One thing I'd like to drop in there from my experiences of losing and missing my senior friends is that almost all of them took breaks before (and if) they came back to mentor. This period of separation led my friends and I to learn not to rely on the knowledge that our friends had and instead learn those things on our own. Bringing back alumni as mentors without any time of separation also leads to the same ways of thinking just circulating within the team. The younger students need time to think for themselves and learn on their own on how to develop a better team otherwise there is no progress being made.

[Billfred]

Were I given the opportunity to repeat my FRC-related escapades in college, I would not have spent the 2005 season (my freshman year of college) working with 1293 for exactly the reasons laid out above. In the minds of many members of the team (and maybe myself), I was Billfred Leverette, Marlowe's Older Brother That Graduated Last Year. These days, I don't have that trouble; none of the students on the team now were on the team when I was in school.

I've seen the switch happen the very next season in very rare cases, but as a rule, I'd highly recommend taking a season away from your high school team in whatever form you desire. Volunteer at an event, work with another team (with all the warnings of John above), but give yourself the space to make the switch.

[dk5sm5luigi]

This is a very tough subject. I have seen this happen several times over the years and several teams I have been on. The biggest problem I have seen is the new mentor acts like a high schooler and hangs out with their old friends. This breaks down the mentor/student line too much in my opinion. This is especially important when the high school students try to get away with something they shouldn't and the college mentor is with them. Don't get me wrong you should have a great relationship with your students but there needs to be a line.

The policy I have on my team is if you are going to a college with a FIRST team then you can not come back to mentor with my team for 2 years. Otherwise we can talk about it. This has worked out great because after working on a different team they then get new experiences that they can put to work for us and after 2 years the team dynamics are different enough that their friends are not on the team anymore.

[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.

[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