The Match Making:
Thanks to the brilliant work by the mentor and mentees from 2014, we got a massive response as soon as we opened the registration process this year. While the number of mentee applications grew rapidly, we were unable to get enough mentors and had to limit the mentee applications to 30. Of them, 8 were Python beginners, 5 were interested in web development, 13 in Data Science, and rest in Advanced Python. After some interwebs lobbying, some arm twisting mafia tactics, we finally managed to get 19 mentees hooked up with their mentors.
Based on my previous experience at pairing mentor and mentees, the relationship works out only if there is a common theme of interest between the two. To make the matching process easier, I focused on getting a full-text description of their background & end goals as well as their LinkedIn data. From what I heard last night from the mentors, the matches have clicked!
The Mentors’ Dinner:
As ChiPy organizers, we are incredibly grateful to these 19 mentors, who are devoting their time to help the Python community in Chicago. Last night’s dinner was a humble note of thanks to them. Set in the relaxed atmosphere of the pizzeria, stuffed with pizza and beer, it gave us an opportunity to talk and discuss how we can make the process more effective for both the mentor and mentees.
Trading of ideas and skills:
The one-to-one relationship of the mentor and mentee gives the mentee enough comfort for saying – “I don’t get it, please help!”. It takes away the fear of being judged, which is a problem in a traditional classroom type learning. But to be fair to the mentor, it is impossible for him/her to be master of everything Python and beyond. That is why we need to trade ideas and skills. Last time when one of the mentor/mentee pairs needed some help designing an RDBMS schema, one of the other mentors stepped in and helped them complete it much faster. Facilitating such collaboration brings out the best resources in the community. Keeping these in mind we have decided to use ChiPy’s meetup.com discussion threads to keep track of the progress of our mentor and mentee pairs. Here is the first thread introducing what the mentor and mentee are working on.
Some other points that came out of last night’s discussion:
- We were not able to find mentors for our Advanced Python track. Based on the feedback we decided to rebrand it to Python Performance Optimization for next time.
- Each mentor/mentee pair will be creating their own curriculum. Having a centralized repository of those will make them reusable
- Reaching out to Python shops in Chicago for mentors. The benefit of this is far reaching. If a company volunteers their experienced developers as mentors, it could serve like a free apprenticeship program and pave the way in recruiting interns, contractors and full time hires. Hat-tip to Catherine for this idea.
Lastly, I want to thank our sponsor – Computer Futures, for being such a gracious hosts. They are focused on helping Pythonistas find the best Python job that are out there. Thanks for seeing the value in what we are doing and hope we can continue to work together to help the Python community in Chicago.
If you are interested in learning more about being a mentor or a mentee, feel free to reach out to me. Join ChiPy’s meetup.com community to learn more about what’s next for the mentor and mentees.