It feels great to be a mentor | Freshmen year Blog : 1
I have been mentored to do different things from a very early age. First mentored by my science teacher to enjoy environmental chemistry , then mentored by my brother to code( which has changed my life) , then to be mentored by some great startup founders(Special mention for Quincy Larson that I have been privileged to connect with and got to learn so much, having been mentored to do something just gives an extra edge and motivation when you’re stuck and having gone through the same cycle I can definitely say it can change lives.
I have been mentoring about 50 freshmen from my college to code and it all started with zero. I was busy working on my app siting at a corner in the library when other two freshers approached me asking for help in finding books. Seeing me working they asked for help and I readily helped them but they just sat with me there and had fruitful conversation about coding, about which they were completely clueless as are the other 3,00,000 freshmen who take up CSE because of “scope”.
They started coming there to meet me everyday as I helped them to get started even though they could barely understand me as they speak very little English and no hindi as both were from Telangana. But they were getting my points clear when I spoke a little slowly. As days passed more and more people started to connect as these guys spoke wonders about me in their respective hostel(More on this later :P)
You might connect with people in English, French, Spanish, Hindi but Connecting with people in programming languages is one of the best thing I have ever come across. Having met freshmen from about 20 states it just feels so awesome when you are working towards giving a path to their journey and this is the connection I am sure people forever remember because it was the one that got them started in their journey towards becoming future software engineers, startup founders , business tycoons etc.
Working first hand with people and making them understand and do things can make yourself a better person as well imo. When you help someone they often look up to you the next time they are stuck and this makes you strive towards getting better and better in what you do.
Firstday of freshmen year(last week)my CSE teacher got to know about my early stage passion for programming and my internships and all that stuff. She asked me to deliver a talk to the class about anything related to programming, I gave it on the different computing pathways a software engineer can have and talked about other stuff like the github education pack, jetbrains free tools and other exciting things related to earning money while coding. I feel all were pretty impressed and found it helpful as almost half of them tried to connect with me to get that presentation and also get first hand help from me when needed. This feels good to be helping to change the way people code in the freshmen year because almost 95% of them have no prior experience in programming which isn’t their fault either given our education system.
Here is one of my friends from Andra pradesh who I have been mentoring to code for over two weeks now. He wrote this about me in his personal diary on the first day I met him
Everyone has mentors in some way or the other and I have been privileged to have my bunch and also striving towards being one for others too.
Ending this by a Kendrick Lamar quote :
I look at where I’m at today and realize that most of my success is owed to the mentors that were in my life.
