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Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#111

Post by gumby »

shubb wrote: post #27

I wouldn't feel confident to mentor anyone on anything. I'd feel like a total fraud. This can't be uncommon. When I was a developer, I either felt like what I was doing could be done by a smart highschooler (probably better than I was doing it) because it was straight forward, or like I was figuring things out as I went along (because it was hard). Now I do less development and more business analysis / architecture,…

> I wouldn't feel confident to mentor anyone on anything. I'd feel like a total fraud

Teaching and helping is an essential part of learning, just as knowing how to follow is essential to becoming a leader. You'll find helping someone else will hone your own skills.

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#112

Post by cosmie »

Professionally, I do some mentoring outside of work. But it's mainly informal, and consists of former employees and interns reaching out to me. For these, the mentoring is less advice-giving and more playing devil's advocate to help them think through decisions and be confident that they've explored all the angles.

Personally, I do mentoring for children through programs like Big Brother[1] and Youth Villages[2]. These programs are constantly in need of male mentors/role models. Even more so for ones that work in white collar areas that these kids may not have ever had exposure to otherwise. As a former mentee in one of these when I was little, I can't stress how impactful these types of programs are. I encourage anyone here that can spare a few hours a month to volunteer at least once for one of these.

[1] http://www.mentorakid.org/site/c.flKYIcOSIiJ6H/b.9192427/k.5... [2] http://www.youthvillages.org/what-we-do/mentoring

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#113

Post by Balgair »

For anyone looking to get into mentoring:

https://www.bgca.org/

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/adults/volunteer.html

http://www.scouting.org/Volunteer.aspx

For more volunteer-y opportunities:

http://www.workingmother.com/family/5-easy-ways-volunteer-yo...

http://money.howstuffworks.com/economics/volunteer/opportuni...

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#115

Post by vram22 »

I did some mentoring on Ruby for beginners as one of the mentors at RubyMentors some years ago, when I was working on Ruby (and Rails) projects. Currently not doing any such mentoring as I am busy with many things. Might start it again after some time, likely this time for the following areas:

- software career guidance for beginners;

- Python, SQL and database design, and Linux/Unix user-level and shell scripting (the mentoring can be done for each of those subjects independently);

- maybe C too a bit later.

I have multiple years of real life experience in all of those.

I also do online mentoring as part of my work, at Codementor. Here is my Codementor profile:

https://www.codementor.io/vasudevram

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#116

Post by mbrain »

I'm a developer for 10 years and I've started to mentoring by HackHands on Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I realized its so much fun and improves my knowledge.

I believe knowledge should be free and I've done lots of volunteered mentoring like instructing RoR 101 more than 200 hours, created a free online RoR101 course.

I find mentoring, helping and instructing people about something you know is fun and exciting, also it makes you better at it.

I also do mentoring at https://www.codementor.io/beydogan

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#117

Post by nrs26 »

grzm wrote: post #103
linker3000 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gah: 'Mentee'. A Mentor doesn't practise the art of 'menting'! The name comes from the character of Mentor in Homer's Odyssey. A mentor has protégées. (Yeah, I know Wikipedia mentions 'mentee' - it's still a horrible word in my book.) /pet peeve!

Thanks for the etymology. Very interesting! At the same time, language evolves and changes. Expecting it not to is likely only to lead to frustration. (I'm not immune. "Steep learning curve" to mean something difficult to learn gets me a bit riled.) The change you observe here is back formation[0], I believe. Now, if you'll please excuse me. I think there are some kids on my lawn. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B…

Interesting! Why do you get riled at "steep learning curve"?

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#118

Post by grzm »

nrs26 wrote: post #117
grzm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the etymology. Very interesting! At the same time, language evolves and changes. Expecting it not to is likely only to lead to frustration. (I'm not immune. "Steep learning curve" to mean something difficult to learn gets me a bit riled.) The change you observe here is back formation[0], I believe. Now, if you'll please excuse me. I think there are some kids on my lawn. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B…

Interesting! Why do you get riled at "steep learning curve"?

The original formulation is based on a skill acquisition vs experience chart. On such a chart, a steep learning curve is one where skills are acquired quickly, as opposed to skills that are difficult to acquire. The common "steep learning curve" = "difficult" usage is understandable, given that steep hills are more difficult to climb. It's a knee-jerk reaction for me so it's transient: you're not going to see steam coming out of my ears :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#119

Post by Jugurtha »

linker3000 wrote: post #95
numbsafari wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The job of a mentor is often simply to listen, and to help the mentee hold themselves accountable. If you've been successful in your career, in spite of what you perceive as personal limitations, I bet you have the humility to be a good listener and an empathetic motivator. Honestly, if you look at most professional mentors and coaches, especially in sports, they aren't "the best" in their field. They are people who…

Gah: 'Mentee'. A Mentor doesn't practise the art of 'menting'! The name comes from the character of Mentor in Homer's Odyssey. A mentor has protégées. (Yeah, I know Wikipedia mentions 'mentee' - it's still a horrible word in my book.) /pet peeve!

"protégées" is for a female only group. If at least one male is in the group, you drop the "e" and it becomes "protégés".

Re: Ask HN: Do you do any mentoring outside of work?

#120

Post by michael_j_ward »

My local python meetup in Chicago (ChiPy)runs an outstanding mentorship program that I have mentored for twice. The program lead does a great job of matching mentees with mentors- so all skill levels can apply.

If you're interested in mentoring in Chicago, I'd recommend coming to a meetup and saying hello!

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