Reply to Our Current Situation

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Our Current Situation - Not thrilled"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Eagle Scouts are only seen as a significant achievement by people who are into scouts ..which is a fast declining minority.  It’s not a particularly difficult rank to achieve as long as you don’t want to quit scouts. Decades ago the projects and community service aspect was unique but now it’s lackluster compared to what other top candidates are doing. It might carry more importance if the kid is applying to a military service academy but it’s non consequential for a good CS program. [/quote]

Frankly, it is a huge benefit for CS kids.  Why?  Because kids who stuck with Scouting to get to Eagle have had to take on leadership roles, conduct meetings, make presentations, speak in front of groups, teach younger Scouts, research, review and plan group trips, research, review and plan budgets, and communicate effectively with younger and older kids, and adults.  They are largely “nerds”, but they have started down the path of learning all the skills a good and effective manager needs to do well.  Something most CS kids have no clue about.

If you think your kid is a potential engineering/CS kid - get them in Scouting.  [/quote]

Hilarious, scouts is the last thing to encourage if they are interested in CS. Tutor underprivileged kids in math, get on math and science competitions teams, execrable at an instrument, compete in hackathons, start a stem club, build apps for non profits, take a linguistics class at community college. [/quote]

And, while worth while (if actually done), none of that provides leadership, communication and group management skills and experience.

How does that work?

My kid was accepted as part of a “Presidential Scholarship” group at a college not far from us.  It was a safety for him, but —- if he could go for free that would certainly put it high in the list.  The candidates all had some academic money in their pockets, but this really was one of those enticements to get higher level kids.  He and I went.  Parents were invited so they could pitch us while the kids were doing what they did.  As related to me later - the kids were separated into groups of 10 at round tables.  They were given an esoteric project to prepare for a group presentation in 2 hours.  (They never actually did any presentation.  The point was to see who could work together and come up with a basically presentable plan and school leadership were watching 1 per 2 tables.  And - really - they were looking to see who were potentially effective leaders.  My kid said he sat back for a couple minutes while 2 took over and said -you take this, you do this etc.   People at the table complained quickly.  And, he applied what he learned in Scouts as a Troop Leader.  Asked everyone around the table to think about what they wanted to do for 3 minutes then everyone would go around the table to make their pitch.  “I’m pretty good at ….I can do that….”   Still didn’t work to get one of the 3 full rides.  He was offered free tuition for 4 years.  He did better elsewhere.  But - that’s the kind iof leadership and management skills you start to build with Scouts.  The reality is you don’t get that stuff anywhere else.  It doesn’t make you an expert, but it does start you down the correct path.

[/quote]

Where did your Scout end up going?[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics