MentorNet: experience with a personal tutor
In this article, the author would like to share his experience of participating in the MentorNet program. The essence of the program is to help students and university graduates to find a mentor who is a professional in his field and has extensive experience in the fields of science, technology and engineering. The student and the mentor are engaged in a one-on-one correspondence by e-mail so that the instructed (protégé) can receive valuable advice, support and / or inspiration.
The program itself is wonderful, but when you try to register for participation, you will immediately encounter the problem that your email must be in the .edu domain, or you must be a member of at least one of the professional communities listed on the site. In the case of the author, there was an ACM membership, which is a major international organization specializing in computer science. For reference, it is she who holds the ICPC programming team championships. Membership in this organization is paid, but for students from Russia there is a special offer for $ 18 a year. Or, alternatively, you can ask around advanced and adequate professors in the department, sometimes universities have subscriptions to IEEE, ACM and other organizations.
After success in the first and most difficult stage - registration, a questionnaire is filled in on the interests, experience and education of the participant. The system will offer several options suitable mentors who show information about experience, field of activity, country, and the name and mail are not shown. Then you can choose one of them, and rushed. Both (the mentor and the protégé) receive a message in the mail with advice on how best to establish the first contact, names and emails are communicated. The conversation begins!
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The author's mentor was from India, a master of computer science with a specialization in iron and C programming, with 11 years of experience and an employee of a small American company with an office in Bangalore. By the way, he recently said that he was able to move to Cisco.
When asked about his interest in mentoring, the answer was rather expected and revealing:
By the way, the communication session is designed for 8 months. After this time, you can apply for a new mentor. By the way, during this period we exchanged about 70 letters for two and managed to discuss such important topics as:
- Who does what
- Pros and cons of graduate school (PhD) abroad compared with work in the company
- The balance of work and personal life
- exchanged and discussed each other's resumes
- Select programming language
- Professional awareness (then the author did not yet know about Habré and other collective blogs)
In conclusion, I will inform you that the experience was incomparably useful and is recommended to all those who need the professional advice of an experienced person, but do not know where to get it.
PS Also, the author would be glad to see such a service from some large Russian Internet company.
The program itself is wonderful, but when you try to register for participation, you will immediately encounter the problem that your email must be in the .edu domain, or you must be a member of at least one of the professional communities listed on the site. In the case of the author, there was an ACM membership, which is a major international organization specializing in computer science. For reference, it is she who holds the ICPC programming team championships. Membership in this organization is paid, but for students from Russia there is a special offer for $ 18 a year. Or, alternatively, you can ask around advanced and adequate professors in the department, sometimes universities have subscriptions to IEEE, ACM and other organizations.
After success in the first and most difficult stage - registration, a questionnaire is filled in on the interests, experience and education of the participant. The system will offer several options suitable mentors who show information about experience, field of activity, country, and the name and mail are not shown. Then you can choose one of them, and rushed. Both (the mentor and the protégé) receive a message in the mail with advice on how best to establish the first contact, names and emails are communicated. The conversation begins!
')
The author's mentor was from India, a master of computer science with a specialization in iron and C programming, with 11 years of experience and an employee of a small American company with an office in Bangalore. By the way, he recently said that he was able to move to Cisco.
When asked about his interest in mentoring, the answer was rather expected and revealing:
While everyone needs to make their own mistakes and learn from them, on hindsight, sometimes I do feel that if someone had given me certain info/feedback during my college days, it would have helped a lot. This is the motivation for being interested in mentoring.By the way, the communication session is designed for 8 months. After this time, you can apply for a new mentor. By the way, during this period we exchanged about 70 letters for two and managed to discuss such important topics as:
- Who does what
- Pros and cons of graduate school (PhD) abroad compared with work in the company
- The balance of work and personal life
- exchanged and discussed each other's resumes
- Select programming language
- Professional awareness (then the author did not yet know about Habré and other collective blogs)
In conclusion, I will inform you that the experience was incomparably useful and is recommended to all those who need the professional advice of an experienced person, but do not know where to get it.
PS Also, the author would be glad to see such a service from some large Russian Internet company.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/130637/
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