I had a mixed experience with FIRST, but it probably had more to do with my individual team than the program itself. I spent my freshman year on my high school's team, which was one of the top in the country. It was very professionalized and well-funded.

It was also easy to get overlooked. I got into the website niche and ended up spending the entire build season mostly working on Photoshop. I knew next to nothing about our actual robot. Unsurprisingly, I was bored at competitions.

I had originally joined because I thought I wanted to be an engineer, but I got sidetracked by web design. I realized this after my freshman year, but was kicked off the team, since we had to conduct interviews every year. The advisors saw that I didn't enjoy the competitions and figured my spot would be better used by someone else. So I never actually learned anything about engineering in a year of FIRST. No one ever pulled me into it and I lost my first and only chance to do it myself.

I often look back at that event as a pivotal one, since the absence of FIRST led to my interest in the arts, politics, etc. Had I spent the whole fours years working on the actual robot, I might have go onto engineering schools, or programming, or all sorts of things completely removed from the liberal arts environment I'm in now.

But that's all speculation. I still wish I would have learned more programming while I was in it.