Ask HN: What is your experience with mentors/mentees?

7 points

10 years ago

Although most of my foundational/theoretical knowledge comes from a traditional university education, most of the knowledge I have that I regard as more important comes from 1:1 discussion with and formal teaching from mentor-like figures throughout my life. I have also had the opportunity to act as a mentor to others, and have found this equally as enriching. I think that the mentor/mentee idea is largely overlooked these days.

I'm interested in figuring out if I simply unusually enjoy 1:1 learning and teaching or if others also prefer this. What are your experiences with mentoring or having a mentor? How formal was the relationship? How often did you meet? Was it worthwhile?

I think everyone, especially in the tech industry, would benefit from having at least one mentor and at least one mentee. There are sites such as codementor.io which could facilitate finding and maintaining mentor/mentee relationships, but these are very programming focused and often are flooded with questions such as "Please debug my Python script for me".

Do you know of any platforms that aim to match up mentors/mentees that are more general (tech specific would be fine, but they shouldn't be programming specific)? Would you use such a platform if it existed?

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