All across the nation colleges are starting back up, and freshman are beginning their college experience. I thought this might be an appropriate time to talk about becoming a robotics mentor as a college student…
I put a post up discussing some of my experiences, and recounting some of the advice I give to students beginning their college life:
http://jvengineering.blogspot.com/2010/08/doing-first-while-in-college.html
Those who know me, won’t be surprised by anything there… 
Interesting post, I haven’t witnessed this myself, but I know of one college student whose grades seriously dropped when he committed to too much FIRST.
Also, aren’t there bigger/better/more challenging things to do in college, the BAJA competition is just one of them… solar car… etc…
Yes preachy, but good advice. My own experience was to work my butt off with 18-hour class loads and 40-hour work weeks years 1-3, which meant my 6 hour last semester was a breeze (1 was a cleanup humanity) and I could easily mentor a team.
It makes sense that college mentors aren’t great mentors in the teacher sense; however that totally ignores the ability for college mentors to show high school students new ways to learn things or even how mistakes are made by example. Generally speaking, college mentors are the closest-relatable mentors high school kids will have, so having someone to bridge the gap of the ages (a.k.a. knowledge paradox) may be useful.
Funny, I don’t think John’s musings are preachy at all. I think they are wise and it’s very cool that he has shared his blog post here on CD.
I’m looking forward to reading the posts in this thread; bet it’s going to be a great thread to find and reflect on down the road. The potential is definitely here.
Thank you, John -
Jane
Here’s another thread on the subject, which reaches the same conclusion for only some of the same reasons: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47004
I read this today after a few of the other mentoring threads, and I’m comfortable in choosing not to continue in FIRST (other than as a volunteer) this year and possibly next year. Its unfortunate, but I’d rather attempt a high GPA and a shot at good jobs than fulfilling a hobby.
Now, FSAE, that sounds like fun…
Thanks JVN
I agree with John’s point, good read.
I feel the part I bolded is a bit off; I wouldn’t say this is just a hobby, nor does it universally reduce the chance of a good job.
I am about to head off to college and I have read through a lot of the other thread on the subject and enjoyed this thread as well.
I know how busy college life can be, I (of course) know how demanding FIRST is, I just got an excellent job at a lab, and I intend to continue in my musical pursuits as well. That being said, I intend to (loosely) remain involved with both FIRST and my team.
The one thing I am absolutely committed to doing is volunteering at my local regional. This is even easier for me than it is for most because my local regional is held on campus.
As for my old team itself: I want to show up every now and then (maybe once a week) as a mentor. The team is struggling a little and I want to be able to support them. School will come far before any FIRST activities and I certainly wont try to spend more than a few hours a week there.
Great post, John
I am a freshman in college now and I think that you make a great point. Even with that I plan to stay involved with FIRST. NC State is hosting a regional kickoff and a regional and I will definitely be there.
As for mentoring a team I am going to give it a shot. The last three years I was one of the leaders of my team and this past year attended about 33 of the 36 meeting we had. I noticed that most of our mentors weren’t there everyday, most of them attending 3 maybe 4 meeting a week and half of those were on the weekends. I think that will work for me because I will still have time to study.
One question that I haven’t seen brought up in any of the other thread: Since the season take place in the spring, during most students 2nd semester of college, shouldn’t they have time to adjust to college during the fall so they can do FIRST in the spring?
I’ll mostly agree with John, but I’ll pick at one of his points in particular:
Too many robotics students go off to school already planning to join up with their local FIRST team (or even worse – stay a member of their HS team). How can you “find yourself” if you just keep doing the same old stuff…
If you are bent on working with an FRC team, I highly recommend not working with the team you worked with in high school. I did; it’s hard (if not impossible) to be a mentor to kids that were your classmates a few months prior.
And just for those who haven’t experienced working with a different team…
Surprise
It will most likely be a different experience from your high school team! Seriously, the experiences of working across 1293, 1618, 2815, and (tangentially) 1398 have all been different and yielded different lessons to learn, both from the technical and non-technical sides.
If you can keep your priorities in order (family, school, robots), I wish you the best of luck. The second semester aspect is what helped me get a feel for staying on with 1293 that year; we weren’t that active in the fall, so making a meeting every week or two was pretty easy to me. Year-round teams may have different issues.
Another thing I think is worth mentioning is that if you’re planning or even thinking about mentoring while in college, you really should sit down with the mentors of that team and discuss what they expect from you. Just saying, “I’ll show up when I can make the time” can be a big (and unintended) disservice to that team who is counting on you fulfilling your agreement.
Anyone have any experience like this?
My team has dealt with this before. We have a set of mentors who show up to meetings on a fairly regular schedule. We also have a set of mentors (mostly college students) who will show up when they can to provide insight on whatever the problem of the day is. Mentors such as this (myself in the future) don’t hold key positions and aren’t given tasks that would require regular attendance.
But you make a very valid point that should really apply to all mentors regardless of attendance.
The best answer for this is the usual “sort of”. The college I go to specifically assumes that kids aren’t ready to go full speed when they start college because they are adjusting to it. Because of this, they try to put alot of easy classes in the first semester. If your college does this, don’t plan for it to really compare to your spring semester as far as time commitment goes. If your class throws a bunch of weed out classes at you first semester, then you might be able to ignore this post. Even then, no two semesters are alike. Some will always be harder then others. If your determined to be a part of FIRST and have more control over your schedule then I do, you might be able to arrange for the Fall to be the harder semester then the Spring.
Hope this helps,
Jason
There are lots of choices in college. The good new is that you can try different things and continue or change depending on how it goes.
2102 loves our college mentors. Both those from the community and returning team members. They and valuable and welcome on whatever schedule and commitment fits. We just reinforce that they are mentors now (not super members) so there role is support.
One thing to think about is how “teaching” new skills and knowledge can help reinforce and integrate new learning. So mentoring can help college students lock in and advance THEIR learning. It also gives you quick feedback on what, in your first career, were good decisions, and what, might have modified knowing what you recently learned.
I’m probably going to end up saying few things in a lot of words. Fair warning. The succinct version is the obvious conclusion: Listen to JVN.
I was going to be the exception to the rule. I read that thread someone linked to. I knew that wouldn’t be me. I’d already taken 2 college classes a year for two years. I was only on my team for a year, no one knows me as a real student anyway. FIRST couldn’t get to me, I will do just fine.
Nope.
JVN’s blog post is scarily accurate for my first year of college. While I didn’t get a 13% on my Thermo midterm (that’s next semester), to save my GPA I dropped below full load for a semester. That’s a BIG DEAL, if you couldn’t tell. You will potentially be faced with the choice between helping out a team of high schoolers and your own success, and you will face this choice before you even realize the consequences of your decision. I missed Calc classes, and didn’t realize what I was doing until it was too late. I’ve been incredibly lucky with how some stuff worked out here, but I dodged a bullet and I KNOW it.
Yes, that “could be you”. It will be you if you think it won’t. I thought it wouldn’t be me. I’m saying this bluntly and not dancing around the subject because you need to hear it. It happens before you notice.
At a time this year the leadership of the team I “mentored” was in question. At one time the thought in my mind was that I would take less of a load my sophomore year in order to better mentor that team. Read that sentence again. This is the kind of decision you will be immature enough to think is a good idea. If you’re honestly mature enough to make these kind of decisions, you will do so well in college that you won’t need this thread…
On mentoring your own team. This will not work. Honestly, I am painting with wide brush strokes, but it’s true. You will not be able to teach and inspire people on the same level as a professional mentor. The mentors and students already know you. You can’t just change hats and expect it to work. There’s really not much more to it than that. If you have a problem with this, I’ll try and elaborate more…
I feel it’s important to note a few things that JVN didn’t touch on directly, or at least in depth. Ask yourself at first why you want to mentor a robotics team. Mentoring, being a student… they’re obviously not the same thing. Do you want to do it because you enjoy building a robot? Well, you’re a mentor. Your job isn’t primarily to build a robot. You have to want to be a robotics mentor because you want to MENTOR, not because you like the system you’re mentoring in (though that helps!). If you TRULY see yourself wanting to use engineering to inspire students… then read everything I and JVN and everyone just said. But honestly, I think a lot of people that say they want to mentor in college, think about it before they even get there, and get ready to do that… I think a lot of you just want to be students some more, or “super students”. There’s plenty of programs for that. VRC has a College Challenge that’s honestly really cool. Mini Baja. Formula SAE. Design / Build / Fly. (Fun fact: iCurtis and I go to the same college. He joined Design / Build / Fly instead of 2791, I did the opposite. He’s graduating a year early, I have to hustle not to graduate a year late. I do not think this is a coincidence.) Anyway, my point is that I bet about 75% of FIRST students who want to be college mentors should really be doing cool stuff in college.
The other thing I feel should be said that wasn’t mentioned is that you do kind of have a “trial period”. First semester freshman year is far easier than the rest, yes, BUT (and I say this very carefully) you can use it to gauge how able you would be to handle FIRST. If you falter from a perfect record, with lots of free time and never skipping class because you don’t feel like it, maybe you can give it a try. If you don’t, you are asking for disaster no matter how many times you tell yourself second semester will be different.
If you are an idiot like I am, and decide to do it anyway, talk to the mentors on the team, or your advisor or trusted older friend at college. Have them watch for the warning signs, you skipping any classes or not studying for any tests. Have them let you know it’s okay to miss a meeting; you can’t be that important to the team as just a college student. If I set this up sooner rather than later, I would have done just fine mentoring Shaker.
All of this being said, I fully plan to mentor 2791 again. Maybe this time I’ll actually know enough to teach them something. But I’m not naive enough to think that I should skip classes for them, or that my role on the team is more important than a successful academic career. At least, I tell myself that now… I told myself that last semester too.
To add to Jason’s excellent postings, probably not.
I said this last fall:
In a classic “Insert Foot in Mouth,” in the spring, I was way, way too busy to mentor a team.
There are so many neat things to do in college besides FIRST. Do something else! Meet cool people interested in the things you’re really interested in. There’s Formula SAE, Formula Hybrid, Design/Build/Fly, Solar Car Racing, AeroDesign, Steel Bridge, Concrete Canoe, MATE ROV, and the list goes on.
Adam,
I don’t think it “universally reduces the chance of a good job” either, but I do think better opportunities exist for college kids than FIRST. My Design Build Fly team receives sponsorship money from our engineering department, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Nothrop-Grumman, and other small companies too. Having some of the people we meet with know your name is pretty hard to beat when it comes to getting a job.
I would say that is also untrue, I’ve got contacts at most local engineering firms, along with some larger ones (which you named) a further distance away.
FIRST isn’t the problem, it’s people being irresponsible (which I suppose is what John was getting at).
I was pretty dead set on not doing FIRST when I came to my school, and evaluated (and went to…) all the clubs and activities that were available. None of them except FSAE had the combination of engineering challenge and competition that I desired, and FSAE was just not my thing.
I determined the best mix of engineering exercise, leadership training, and just plain fun available to me was to mentor the local FIRST team. I still do a lot of design (and for local companies) for other clubs on request, but the FIRST team is what really gets my attention
I admit, every once in a while I miss a class or skip a homework “for the team”, but the absence of FIRST would not change that; if I were in some other program, I would occasionally do the same “for that team”.
Mentoring a FIRST team in college isn’t bad; mentoring a FIRST team at great personal expense and/or exploring what other activities are available is. In my opinion, what’s important in college (for engineering) is to learn the material, get respectable grades, and get some quality hands on design experience; the methods are up to the individual.
Chief Delphi is my main contact with the FIRST community these days. I don’t mentor a team (none anywhere near); I only volunteer on spring break (if then); all that sort of thing.
Instead, I compete hard with the Aero Design team on campus. It’s a different look at engineering, and it gets attention from employers. Robotics gets a bit more, but I can work with either one fluently.
As for skipping class, there are 2 reasons that I do it. 1) I sleep in. Bad thing, I try not to do it, etc. 2) I have a school-sponsored activity that day (school policy is that professors can’t punish you beyond your not being in class for the lecture if it’s a school-sponsored activity). I don’t skip homework (bad things happen, beyond grades slipping), but I might turn it in late if I have a school-sponsored activity like Aero Design and can talk the professor into letting me do that. (Failing that, I turn it in early.)
What I do with FIRST/Aero Design, I do in my free time. (Admittedly, I try to structure my free time so that FIRST/Aero stuff gets priority…)
I guess this thread finally got me motivated to actually start posting.
I really agree with most of the comments in the thread but also I wanted to pass some of the advice I gave to the 294 graduating students in past year or so.
First off JVN is right on. I am glad that he spent the time to make this post to highlight his experiences. As a mentor who only heard of FIRST when finishing my masters I could never be in the position that you graduating seniors are in.
My recommendation to our students was similar to what has been recommended. Try new things, look for new clubs. Get involved with the college community. Get out of your comfort zone once and a while. Have fun! You only get to be an undergrad once!
However the number one thing I stress is that you are going to college to better yourself. You or your parents are paying very good money to enable your future success. You need to remember that your primary occupation at this time is a student. This is what you are first and formost; make college your life.
I know most of FIRST students are great people and are really giving and want to give back to the FIRST community. But for once I would say that you need to be selfish. You need to spend the time experiencing college and maxing out the amount you can gain from your college of choice. Mentoring can wait until you are ready… FIRST will still be here!
In the end the choices are our own. I know I have made my mistakes and I know you students will make your own. In the end, I wish you all the best of luck! Study hard and enjoy the ride.
All of the mentors on team 125 are college students, or very recent college grads. I’ve seen dozens upon dozens of college mentors go through our team. Some are able to succeed right away (very very rarely) while most flounder for almost the entirety of their careers on the team. Very few are able to stick with the team through all 5 years (Northeastern is a 5 year school), but the few that do become very proficient mentors.
FIRST is tough on college students. In my opinion, FIRST is not designed for college students to have a very active role in it. Just like how you grow a lot (physically and emotionally) through high school, you do the same through college. A high school senior on the team, who has participated for the last 4 years is almost identical in experience to a college freshman joining a team in the fall. Literally only a couple of months of summer separate these two. To think some magic transformation will occur over those months is slightly ignorant in my opinion.
The way our team operates, utilizing college mentors as pretty much the only mentor support, creates numerous obstacles we have to hurdle. At the end of the day, we are a successful FIRST team, that inspires our high school students and helps the community. However, it burns college students out left and right. Like I said above, some are able to get through the rough patches and develop into amazing mentors, but along the way there are many college mentors who burn themselves out.
I agree with everything JVN said, but I also understand how tough it is to let go of something you really care about. My recommendation is to take at least 1 year off from FIRST if you truly insist on being a college mentor. Give yourself time to develop as a person and gain some know-how. Looking back on when I joined my FIRST team as a college freshman, I realize I had people telling me the same thing and I didn’t really listen. I wish I would have because I think it could have really helped me in the long run.
Good post JVN.
-Brando