Looking for a Mentor

11 points by HOOVERDAM 5 years ago | 10 comments

Is there some type of service outside of higher learning that can put me together with a mentor of some kind to guide me in further developing my skills? I believe am hitting a ceiling with what I can do on my own just from ambition/work ethic/"talent". I feel I am at the point where it would be more cost effective for some external force like a professor or the pursuit of another piece of paper to push me where I want to be in my craft rather than to continue being self taught and take more time to reach this point on my own. Cost of paying for school/hiring a mentor isn't really the concern here, rather the return on time invested seems to be diminishing the more I go on my own. I purposely left this generic to see what people in any field have done if they have reached this point in their career, but to provide some context, my ultimate goal is to reach a master level in CS coming from an unrelated engineering background/undergrad studies.

rokobobo 5 years ago |

Have you thought about straight up reaching out to people in your network or their connections and asking nicely if they’d be up for mentoring you? I expect 90-95% of the responses would be lukewarm to nonexistent, and you shouldn’t take it personally—but every now and then you might find someone with some extra bandwidth and an altruistic attitude to give a shot at establishing such a relationship. It might help if the people you reach out to, are people you have something in common with: ideally, they would be able to see their past selves in you. (For me personally, that has been a big motivator to start such a relationship.)

That’s my take on mentors—and generally, I feel that mentors aren’t people who do this to get paid. Alternatively, if you’re looking for someone to take on the role of a tutor and willing to pay up, you could go on Stanford/MIT’s popular CS classes, find out who were the TAs last semester, and reach out to them offering 2x-3x the pay.

protabot 5 years ago |

I had the same feeling, like there are not enough people to bounce ideas off of. I am hesitant to reach out to people in my inner circle (old friends/family) because they are just not developing themselves the way that I want to, or are not pursuing fields that I am interested in.

Do you have a specific topic in mind? I made a group called The Polymath Club (thepolymathclub.com) to collaborate on world problems/ ideas. The purpose of building the group was to get input from many smart people in cross-discipline fields. We currently have 8 members. You are more than welcome to join our meetings, you can even ask this very question you posed and we can discuss :)

Cheers! And best of luck in case we don’t get to talk later :)

-Jane

_ah 5 years ago |

The best teacher is experience. If you feel like your skills have plateaued, I recommend looking for a new job using very hard technology and having world-class colleagues to learn from. Doesn't matter how much study you do, you will top out if your largest investment per week is building CRUD apps.

wikunia 5 years ago |

Not directly a mentor but maybe a study group helps? Have you done some internet courses on some topics? Maybe try to connect to the professors. They might have good students that can help you out. I think finding a mentor for coding stuff is one thing but getting a good background of CS education is harder. Hope you find someone :)

HOOVERDAM 5 years ago | |

Appreciate the input! I am considering getting my masters in CS at the local university where I live but am looking at any alternatives at this point. I believe my fundamentals are there, its this "coding stuff" I want to excel at.

wikunia 5 years ago | | |

Okay for coding I what say: practice practice practice :D I personally learn best when I have an idea and I want to implement something specific. Can be big or small. Best are the ones which are very extensible. What I do as a mentor is to review code and give feedback. You probably don't wanna learn julia though. You can get some starter feedback at exercism.io Maybe you can ask there as well if someone wants to mentor you for some cash.

afarrell 5 years ago |

> my ultimate goal is to reach a master level in CS coming from an unrelated engineering background/undergrad studies.

Why not literally get a Masters degree? Find a professor who is studying something you want to study, then go apply for a degree program with them.

Alternately, I hear that the Recurse Center is cool.

cvhashim 5 years ago |

I studied biology/pharmacology in undergrad but now work as a SWE. I can try to help with your decision. A colleague of mine studied Mechanical Engineering in college but is currently finishing a master’s in SWE to get into the field. Have you considered doing a bootcamp?

BeReADY 5 years ago |

check on some of my niche mentor related content, might be to junior or low level mentor, but I will say I enjoy mentoring and have bit experience that allows me to mentor and be mentored. Learning goes both ways. I'm on search for tech specific partner in our bootstrapped biz, but I'm also a passionate mentor in my adjacent aligned field. Check out my substack, message me here, or search #TheBradyMentality

kleer001 5 years ago |

Have you tried a deep dive into the biography and work of an esteemed historical figure? Some of 'em have written lots.