The Impact Of Mentoring During the Pandemic Situation
Humans are social beings. No matter how introverted we are, to really help us grow and bring out the best in ourselves, we need to have some form of interaction with others.
I don’t know about you, but I thrive on feedback. I usually mess things up the first time I do anything, and then with the right feedback, I tend to do an amazing job the next time. I also learn much faster when talking to someone, and when I get a bit of guidance.
But this whole situation, where most people are working from home, has barred us from having interactions with our coworkers and other experts in terms of mentoring and pair programming. Or has it?
Plans Falling Through
Back in February & early March, COVID was just one of those things you didn't know will happen in your country too. Sure, there were warning signs all over the place, but they were up there since late December or January, and I guess no-one knew the situation we’d be in a few months after Christmas.
Back here in Osijek, Croatia, the GDG Osijek team was planning our third year of the Android Academy, happily going through the curriculum, the logistics, and preparing to validate our applicants!
That’s when we got the news — universities, schools, and most of the “public” institutions and jobs are being closed for the moment, to help promote health & safety measures of staying at home.
This meant for us that we have to delay or even cancel the Academy, one of my favorite projects every year.
The reason why this is my favorite project is that every year we give twenty people the education to become junior-level developers, and kick-off their careers.
It’s just beautiful to be able to help so many people, seeing how you can pass your knowledge and experience to others.
But the Academy was not happening, and the time I had planned for the workshops wasn't going anywhere now.
Sometimes Sacrifice Is A Good Thing
At this point, I could’ve just said, hey, free time! And I guess any normal person would do that, and let themselves enjoy a bit extra personal time, work on personal projects, or just relax with video games, books, movies or something similar.
But I realized that with the whole stay at home situation, many people lost the ability to do some pair programming, or just the casual chat over a coffee at the office, talking about programming problems, and trying to learn more from each other.
At that moment, I decided I’ll try to fill that void, and offer a bit of my time, to help others with their problems! :]
I took inspiration from an initiative from Joe Birch. Joe is a Google Developer Expert for Android, and so am I. Being a part of the GDE program means that we’re very passionate about helping out the community as much as we can, and this was one of those projects through which we did that.
Last year (I believe) he did an initiative where he created several 15–30-minute slots to talk to him about any problem you might have in your Android apps.
This proved to be an awesome project, and he has dozens of people talk to him, and it made a huge impact in the community. So I thought to myself, why not do something similar?
If I can sacrifice a bit of my spare time, and in turn help others overcome their own problems, learn development, or even motivate them to mentor their friends and colleagues, then I think it would be worth the sacrifice.
And I decided to go with the Sunday Afternoon Mentoring version of the project! :]
Sunday Afternoon Mentoring
I decided to go with Sunday as my mentoring day, as it’s the day I usually don’t have anything else going on. And I had figured people would have the same mindset.
After setting up everything on Calendly, I decided to give four 15-minute slots each Sunday, which is a total of two hours of mentoring every Sunday. These four slots would mean up to four people every week, but as I had anticipated, not every week would people apply, as this is also a commitment on their behalf.
Since the end of March, I’ve had about fifteen slots/meetings booked, and even though it could’ve been more than that, I’m happy with the outcome.
I’ve had amazing talks with multiple people, I’ve gained some insight into the problems people have in their projects, companies, development teams, and I’ve also met so many wonderful individuals, who are doing their part to help make the community even better, just like I am.
They were situated in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe! So I’ve talked to people from all around the globe!
I’ve even had some recurring people, where we talked for 3–4 weeks in a row, and they always had new interesting topics to discuss. It just goes to show how, even though we’re all staying at home, and we can’t really meet in person, to discuss our problems, you can still reach out to a wide audience, and share your knowledge no matter what.
The project will continue to run indefinitely, as long as there are people who want to book the mentoring slots! :]
Summing It Up
This project is really fun, and not only am I helping people with their coding problems, but I guess I’m also helping other people keep their sanity in this crazy situation, as they have definitely helped me keep mine, and have really given me exciting topics to talk and think about each week! :]
If you’re a part of the GDG program, or you’re a Google Developer Expert, try doing the same for your local community, as I think it would be very helpful to newer developers, if you did that! :]
But even if you’re not a part of the GDG program, and you’re not a GDE (at least not yet!), that doesn’t mean you cannot give a bit of your free time to others and create a ripple effect that will make all of us happier, smarter, and less stressed out due to the situation we’re in.
In case you need some mentoring, book a slot with me using the following link. And if you think this is a cool project, and have the time to spare, I’d definitely advise you to try it out, and see how it goes! You’ll start appreciating the help you’re giving out shortly!
Thanks, and be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments below. :]
