College Students

FIRST General Forum
1

I suppose this question is to all college students and all FIRST members who are looking to go to enroll in college soon.

Some colleges offer scholarships through FIRST some do not. Does a school offering a scholarship through FIRST make them seem like a more reputable engineering school?

If you are attending a school on a scholarship that you received through FIRST: Would you have attended that particular school had you not received the scholarship?

If you are attending a university who offers a scholarship but did not receive a scholarship from that school: How much was your choice of school effected by the fact that they offer a scholarship through FIRST?

Any other comments on FIRST’s scholarship program?

2

I am attending Kettering University and applied for the FIRST scholarship but was not a recipient. This was my first choice even before I knew about the scholarship. I was worried at times that without the scolarship I would not be able to afford to come here, but I am still managing without it.

3

I applied to Kettering because they offered a FIRST scholarship. In addition to being accepted by Kettering, they offered me a half-ride academic scholarship. After visiting Kettering I realized I could NEVER go there and didn’t even bother applying for the FIRST scholarship.

My point: Find a type of college you like (i.e. big & urban or private & expensive etc.) and then look at scholarships for schools of that type.

Oh, and don’t pay too much attention to US News ratings.

4

I was coming to GVSU before i knew about their scholarship…unfortunately i didn’t meet all of the criteria. anyways its ok cause i changed my major to Pre-Vet.

some how working with animals has always been my dream…or designing cars…

maybe i will design cars for animals! lol

5

I applied to Drexel for the scholarship, I did not receive it. However, I received another large sum of money from them through aid, but I VERY much disliked being in the city.

I also applied to WPI due to the affiliation with FIRST. However, reasons beyond my control kept me from moving so far away from home.

Truthfully, when looking at a college, I don’t know if one can ever say it is ‘the school’! I really like the campus I am on, it is beautiful there. On the other hand, I am not fond of the education side of it nor the living situation.

6

I applied for the Northeastern Full Tuition FIRST Scholarship… I didn’t win it.

But I think because I talked about FIRST in all my essays anyway that I’ve been able to get all of tuition covered by scholarships these past two years…

When looking at colleges I knew I was going to be addicted to FIRST. But I knew I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of starting a new team or picking up one that has really fallen apart… I wanted to be on a team where the school really backed it up.

Including location and ability to persue other hobbies (hiking, backpacking, skiing, kayaking, scuba diving)… I’ve found my match. I love it here.

7

I won the $10,000 a year FIRST scholarship to The University of Delaware. I am now in my sophomore year majoring in Computer Engineering. I would have applied to UD even without the scholarship because it was close to home. I also applied to Cornell, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and University of Pennslyvannia. I was accepted to Cornell and Carnegie Mellon but I could not rationalize paying $20,000/yr more when Delaware has an excellent engineering program. How much better could thier undergrad programs be? I hope to attend MIT for graduate work.

This is an excellent school for engineering, especially Chemical Engineering since many major chemical companies like DuPont in the area donate heavily. I know several Chemical Engineers (some Honors students) who had to drop the major because is was just too difficult. If you want to be a Chemical Engineer (and are dedicated) then you have to specify that on your application, because it is nearly impossible to transfer in. The Chemical Engineering here was ranked am

I think the best thing about Delaware Engineering is they get you right into your major while many colleges have you take General Education for a year or so without touching your major. The first semester I took a Computer Engineering class that gave you a breadboard and gate chips so you could do your labs . Also I took a C++ class at the same semester. I like the 2 Electrical Engineering profs I have this year. One of them (Dr Elias) invented MotionTouch technology which is used for FingerWorks keyboards which sense your fingertips and gestures (http://www.fingerworks.com/).

A couple tips for about the Delaware Scholarship:

1: Apply for the honors program. It requires another short essay. Anyone who makes it into the Honors program will likely beat out anyone who doesn’t for the FIRST scholarship. Even if you don’t get the FIRST scholarship, many students in the Honors program get a scholarship. I was awarded a $7,500/yr scholarship through the Honors Program before I got the First scholarship.

2: Be out of state. I am guessing you already are since there are not many FIRST teams in Delaware (2 teams now). 67% of Delaware students are out of state (On my floor last year, there were more students from NYC than Delaware). In state tuition is less than 10,000 a year, they are not going to pay you to got to class. I am from Pennsylvania but I pay a little less tuition than Delaware residents.

3: Delaware has 4-1-4 semester scheduling but the scholarship only applies to Fall and Spring Semesters. Winter Semester is optional but it will cost almost as much as the other semesters to take 1-2 class at out of state prices. Instead I take a much needed 6 week break in Jan-Feb to build robots and go skiing.

4: If you were not looking at Delaware as a college option, then at least check it out. Newark is a nice college town (Pop: about 30,000). Pretty much the entire town is built around the university and caters to the students. Main street is right outside my dorm window so I live within a 100 yards of 2 pizza parlors and 2 coffeehouses .

5: Feel free to contact me for more info. My Aim is: The Lucas 365 or Biffus Meridus

8

the question is interesting

I think you will discover that unless your parents are very wealthy, you will end up going to the best college you can afford.

My daughter applied for the FIRST scholarship at NorthEastern, and did not win it, but they offered her a full scholarship ANYWAY

she also applied to several other colleges. One thing to keep in mind, when you look in the college guides they list the tuition, but most places offer partial grants or reduce that price in one way or another.

My daughter ended up getting a partial scholarship (grant) from RIT - it would have cost her about $8,000 a year to goto RIT, and since we live in Rochester, she could live at home

and if she accepted the full scholarship at NEU, she would have to pay about $8,000 a year for a dorm, or to rent an apartment and buy food.

so it was an even tradeoff, money wise. She picked RIT.

I cant over emphasize the importance of applying for FIRST scholarships to every school that offers the degree you are looking to obtain. You never know how things will turn our, and which schools will accept you, or how much money they will offer you.

wiggle the handle on every door you have access to at this point in your life. You will be surprized how many doors will open for you.

9

*Originally posted by KenWittlief *
so it was an even tradeoff, money wise. She picked RIT.

The real question is, why isn’t she on the FIRST team? :wink:

Matt

10

*Originally posted by Matt Leese *
**The real question is, why isn’t she on the FIRST team? :wink:

Matt **

she was going to mentor students from another local rochester team for the annimation project, but that team did not do an annimation last year

and now she is studying at an art institute (annimation and film making) in another state.

11

We have the worst time collecting all the students that are/were involved in FIRST on campus. It’s like hearding cats some days.

Matt

12

*Originally posted by KenWittlief *
**she was going to mentor students from another local rochester team for the animation project, but that team did not do an annimation last year

and now she is studying at an art institute (animation and film making) in another state. **

Wow, that sounds exactly like what I want to get into! Sounds like from everyone’s posts above that FIRST is key in scholarships. Go FIRST! :smiley:

13

Alright, I just found a ranking system I like. It’s called the The Gourman Report: A Rating of Undergraduate Programs in American and International Universities. I can’t find a website with all the rankings (only a book), but you can view the U of MN’s rankings here.

It’s much better than the US News Report. Find it. Read it. Use it.

14

I am at a Purdue regional campus for 2 reasons.

  1. My first college plan to go to MSOE blew up in my face when I didnt get the financial aid I was promised from the school. (Cost is around 32K a year for everything (tuition, room and board, extra costs)

  2. I paid 2200 for 13 credit hrs and textbooks this semester…and classes are 5 minutes from my house. Also I can keep my job. I can stay here for a year, under 5,000 and finish the rest of my college at Purdue.

15

Having a scholarship can make them look more reputable because they are supporting what they are teaching people to do.

FIRST should broaden and offer more of the scholarships that don’t mention particular schools because there are participants in FIRST that are not going to become engineers.

16

*Originally posted by gsensel *
**FIRST should broaden and offer more of the scholarships that don’t mention particular schools… **

FIRST doesn’t offer the scholarships, organizations offer them. These organizations need to be encouraged to open up scholarships to FIRST students, I agree… but it’s not like we should expect FIRST to hand this to us on a silver platter.

If anyone wantsan organization to give a scholarship to FIRST students, they should not wait for FIRST to offer it. FIRSTers should go to these organizations and get them to do it. If an organization is convinced to do this, FIRST would probably not turn them down.

So, don’t wait for FIRST to do this for you… go out and make it happen.

Andy B.

17

Personally I would love to see more non-engineering and non-specific scholarships, but like Andy said, it’s not FIRST’s fault or anything like that. Somehow I doubt that any scholarship opportunity has been turned down by FIRST, so what we have is just what people have turned up so far. Anyone at college now should go to their administration and try to get them to throw out some money for FIRST (unless of course they already do!).

As for going to college and paying for it, here’s my advice: Don’t worry about the money. Apply to places you want to go and don’t even go to the cost page to see what it is. When you do your financial aid stuff, then start thinking about it. Haggle with them. You can get more money! You’re the customer and they are trying to suck you in. Hold your acceptance letters to other places in their face. Once you get a lot of money (hopefully), if there’s still a bunch left to pay, take out a private student loan. My parents aren’t paying anything and I personally have $10000 in loans for this year (out of $42000, so it ain’t too bad), but I’m where I want to be and I’ll never regret it even though I could have gone for free to a few other places.

18

I aplied for the FIRST scholarshop at michigan tech and didn’t get it. Like others said, i was planning on going here anyway. The scholarship would have just made it a little bit easier. I got a $1600 a year scholarship from the school anyway which helps cover the expenses. I’m not actually on the team up here this year though. I’m still not sure i’ll have time for it with all my classes.

Also, in relation to the previous point about it being hard to find college FIRSTers i think i might know why. MY college has many other elctrical and programming clubs and activities that are much less restrictive. We have future truck, solar car, mini baha, ect. These projects go throughout the year and have way less restrictions than FIRST. I think people just grow out of it. FIRST was fun, in highschool. As our skills grow the challenge needs to too. FIRST did its goal. It gets us inspired and interested in technology, be it with FIRST or without. :slight_smile:

19

In the middle of my senior year, I decided that I was going to apply to Purdue University for a computer science major. I planned on joining 461, knew someone I wanted to room with, etc. before I even got the letter back telling me that I was on a waiting list and hadn’t been accepted yet. It was a big slap in the face of reality.

I had decided on Purdue pretty much all of my high school years, but computer science was just something that I wanted to try out. After not being accepted, I was crushed. Picked myself up. And rather rashly, decided that the next approved college application that came my way was the college that I was going to go to.

My Ball State University application came three days later. I had never been here, never visited, and I didn’t even know where Muncie was (I hadn’t even heard of it at that point). I sent back all the information, and decided that it was for me without even flipping through a brochure or looking at costs. I changed my major to English without looking back. I was so heartbroken over Purdue that I just went for the next thing in the mail.

After getting here (and incidentally falling in love with the campus) I realized that there was no team and no engineering dept. to head it up. I contacted the BSU Technology Dean, several professors… nothing seemed to work out. But we got a little money, a couple of students, and a teacher’s lounge, and that’s all we needed.

Moral of the story: Go wherever makes you happy. And if they don’t have a team, start one.

20

gsensel,
I think I know what you are saying, there should be ‘FIRST scholarships’ at schools other than engineering schools

but keep in mind, FIRST does not give out any scholarhips themselves, the universities do

FIRST doenst have any money of its own, it all comes from donations.