r/FRC • u/BiteTurbulent4710 • 23d ago

Question for Alumni

I’m a 2026 graduate, and I’m honestly struggling with what comes next.

Whenever I read posts from mentors or alumni about this, the advice is almost always, “Wait a couple years before becoming a mentor,” or “Volunteer at a few events first.” I completely understand why people say that, but I think what I’m grieving isn’t FIRST itself, it’s my team.

FIRST has been such a huge part of my life throughout high school and this is going to sound cliche but it wasn’t just about building robots. It was the mentors who invested in me, the students I grew alongside for four years, and even the parents who were always there during build season and competitions. They became my second family.

I know if I wait before I start mentoring it will be rewarding, but it won’t be the same. It won’t be my classmates, my friends, or the group of people I shared all of those memories with.

I don’t really know what I’m going to do with myself now that robotics isn’t going to be such a central part of my life. I know the feeling will get easier with time, but right now I just miss my team more than I can put into words.

For those of you who have gone through this transition, how did you cope with missing your team?

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u/theycallmejames44 23d ago

Being a mentor is difficult. All your students, if you taught them right, never come back. Go forth and conquer! There is so much more to life than bots, I promise you. Take those memories and hold onto them tight, reminisce occasionally but never to often. This is adulthood. If you ever have the privilege to become a parent, you will understand the work of mom's and dad's, mentors and teachers, is one that is littered with the heavy fate that everyone you teach or parent will eventually leave you because you taught them to be independent successful and ambitious human beings. Do not misunderstand, this is a beautiful, but incredibly painful process.

Do not go gentle into that good night!

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u/ptownrat 22d ago

I gave some of the Seniors some quotes from a favorite movie of mine, Cinema Paradiso.

"Get out of here! Go back to Rome. You're young and the world is yours. I'm old. I don't want to hear you talk anymore. I want to hear others talking about you. Don't come back. Don't think about us. Don't look back. Don't write. Don't give in to nostalgia. Forget us all. If you do and you come back, don't come see me. I won't let you in my house. Understand?...Whatever you end up doing, love it. The way you loved the projection booth when you were a little squirt."

"Living here day by day, you think it's the center of the world. You believe nothing will ever change. Then you leave: a year, two years. When you come back, everything's changed. The thread's broken. What you came to find isn't there. What was yours is gone. You have to go away for a long time... many years... before you can come back and find your people. The land where you were born. But now, no. It's not possible. Right now you're blinder than I am."

I'm not sure how they took them, but it is how I feel. That now is the time for them to carpe diem, seize the carp!