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You should be a mentor

robertheaton.com

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Re: You should be a mentor

#21

Post by mindcrime »

Cakez0r wrote: post #8

This post read like a bit of a humblebrag to me. I think it's fine to go to events and share experiences as part of conversation - the community is a big part of making a great event. To go to an event with the mindset of being a mentor to other people when you're just another guy trying to get a startup off the ground would definitely put me off. “That guy doesn’t know shit. Why should I listen to him? Why is he eve…

To go to an event with the mindset of being a mentor to other people when you're just another guy trying to get a startup off the ground would definitely put me off.

Why? You don't believe he may have learned some useful stuff from the process of "trying to get a startup off the ground"? Some "stuff" that could be useful to someone who is earlier in their own journey than the OP? If so, why wouldn't he share?

And as far as that goes... I don't know about you, but I subscribe to the belief that "everybody can learn something from pretty much everybody else".

There's also something to be said for the old saw about how an expert's mind is full and closed to new possibilities, while a beginner doesn't know what is "not possible" and can therefore discover new things more easily.

Re: You should be a mentor

#22

Post by wasd »

Is anyone looking for a mentoree? I'm a self taught software engineer at a small company in the SF Bay Area. I studied mathematics at Berkeley. Lived in Los Angeles most of my life. Worked in film, real estate and advertising prior. I even helped start a company before I knew what HN was!

Re: You should be a mentor

#23

Post by jonny_eh »

wasd wrote: post #22

Is anyone looking for a mentoree? I'm a self taught software engineer at a small company in the SF Bay Area. I studied mathematics at Berkeley. Lived in Los Angeles most of my life. Worked in film, real estate and advertising prior. I even helped start a company before I knew what HN was!

Sure. I'd love to help out, get in touch: jon+hn@jonabrams.com

Re: You should be a mentor

#24

Post by goatcurious »

scrabble wrote: post #18

I would love a mentor. How do you find mentors in software development? Pick a public figure that you respect?

I'd say more than a public figure, reach out to folks with good software development experience with a specific query. See how they respond, and take the conversation from there.

Re: You should be a mentor

#25

Post by rudasn »

dfriedmn wrote: post #15
rudasn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate on what you think is a good mentor, and how one may become a good mentor? On that note, I've been considering of mentoring entry/medium-level developers for some time now but I seriously don't know what exactly that entails. My goal is to help people understand and appreciate the importance of well formed, semantic HTML and CSS and unobtrusive javascript. My belief is that all these different…

We've mentor about 75 students in front-end development at Thinkful (thinkful.com) – we're actually working with a team of about 12 mentors now. If you'd like to join, feel free to reach out (email is dan at thinkful). We've learned a ton about best practices for how to help beginners learn over the last 6 months of doing it.

Cool, e-mail sent!

Re: You should be a mentor

#26

Post by Cakez0r »

mindcrime wrote: post #21
Cakez0r wrote: post #8

This post read like a bit of a humblebrag to me. I think it's fine to go to events and share experiences as part of conversation - the community is a big part of making a great event. To go to an event with the mindset of being a mentor to other people when you're just another guy trying to get a startup off the ground would definitely put me off. “That guy doesn’t know shit. Why should I listen to him? Why is he eve…

To go to an event with the mindset of being a mentor to other people when you're just another guy trying to get a startup off the ground would definitely put me off. Why? You don't believe he may have learned some useful stuff from the process of "trying to get a startup off the ground"? Some "stuff" that could be useful to someone who is earlier in their own journey than the OP? If so, why wouldn't he share? And as…

I wouldn't be presuming you don't know shit or wondering why you're here

I think it's fine to go to events and share experiences as part of conversation

I absolutely think you can learn something from everybody. In this situation, I feel that should be in the context of learning from a peer, rather than a mentor

Re: You should be a mentor

#27

Post by rudasn »

nahname wrote: post #13
rudasn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate on what you think is a good mentor, and how one may become a good mentor? On that note, I've been considering of mentoring entry/medium-level developers for some time now but I seriously don't know what exactly that entails. My goal is to help people understand and appreciate the importance of well formed, semantic HTML and CSS and unobtrusive javascript. My belief is that all these different…

Why not do a session/presentation/lunch&learn on how to build web apps without a library. Or how to build something like backbone. Showing teams how to test their front end code is also a great way to introduce better practices and more concern for quality. The biggest challenge to being a mentor isn't wisdom, it is respect. The person you are trying to teach needs to respect you before they will be willing to learn…

> Why not do a session/presentation/lunch&learn on how to build web apps without a library.

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I think libraries are bad - on the contrary. It's just that I'm really puzzled by people who are willing to blindly use some piece of code, and build their codebase around that code, without even understanding what that library actually does. This mostly happens with CSS/HTML libraries which unfortunately are considered to be second-class citizens nowadays as opposed to javascript frameworks. No, your HTML/CSS is equally or more important than, dare I say, the javascript framework of the day.

> The biggest challenge to being a mentor isn't wisdom, it is respect. The person you are trying to teach needs to respect you before they will be willing to learn from you.

As a self-taught professional, I really don't understand this. I can see why that would be the case, but I still can't really "get it".

Respect is important, and it goes both ways, but I'm not sure if it's (or should be) something that happens before even having some interaction with the other person.

I may respect the work someone has done but it doesn't necessarily mean that I respect them as a teacher (although learning from someone's work is still on the table) because I don't know beforehand how good of a teacher they are. At the same time, I may not respect the work someone has done but it doesn't mean I have nothing to learn from them.

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