college essay

John Valentine

College Essay

In my life I never knew what I wanted to do with my life until I got into CCTS, Camden County Tech School. This school opened my eyes to a whole new world. I am currently in school for electric. When I was a sophomore my shop teacher asked me if I wanted to apply for the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) team. He told me it had to do with building robots. I told him I wanted to apply so I did. I got accepted. Only 15 out of 1200 get accepted. I got a whole bunch of new opportunities. I got to have an experience that most high school students don’t get to have. I got to learn how to design a robot on paper and than build it. Since my shop is electric I could help the team out by using my skills in electric. The FRST team was perfect for me, I love to be hand on and building things. Being on the team brought me ANOTHER great opportunity. Our FIRST team got invited to go to Hawaii for a tournament. I was so excited. Only 10 of the 15 team members could go so they picked the kids that worked the hardest. I was one of them. We went for 9 days. While we where there we went to Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head Volcano. I learned a lot at Pearl Harbor. When the tournament was over we took 3rd place. Out of 100 teams third place was good. Joining the FIRST team made me realize what I wanted to do in my life. What I wanted to do is be an electrical and mechanical engineer. I want to continue to build and design robots, anything to do with them will be my dream job. If it wasn’t for CCTS I probably still wouldn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.