Mentoring is a big part of what I do professionally, but my path to being a mentor started with being mentored myself when I was still very young. It all started with my first computer, a Commodore 64, which is what got me interested in IT. My dad saw that I had this interest, and fostered it. He introduced me to programming in addition to system building. The first machine I built was a mighty 286 from spare parts that my dad had laying around. It was also on this 286 that I started to learn to code and my the time I was in high school, I was hooked on computers. One of my teachers, Scott Brown, also recognized my interest in computers and let me run amuck in his lab. While Brown (as we called him) didn’t always have the answers to everything, he was “there” to support in any way he could. It was through his class that I was referred to my first tech job as a network administrator managing a Novell 3.1 network for Patrick Malloy Communities after school. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. The titular owner, Patrick Malloy, was the kind of boss everyone loves. He honored hard work and initiative and recognized talent and allowed people to take risk, and even sometimes fail. It was in these environments that my interests were incubated and grew. I can confidently say that without mentors like Dad, Brown and Patrick I don’t think I would have ever got through many of the setbacks that I had.
I started mentoring when I was in college, particularly other students. It wasn’t much, but by the time I was a senior in college, I had been working in IT for 5 years all while I was going to school. I had acquired some experience. Though meager, it was still much more than most of my peers. This put me in a unique position to be able to speak into many things that the soon-to-be graduates would be facing, so it seemed only fitting that I become a mentor. I started by teaching workshops through ACM and was also able to coach underclassmen through computer science classes. This mentoring lead me to my first job after I graduated college as a programming instructor. The requirements for the job were simple: a minimum of 5 years of experience plus a degree and I had both. It was during this time that mentoring kicked into overdrive because as an instructor, I had to do more than merely teach programming. I had to mentor students on all things related to career choices and how to navigate the IT business in general. Since this time, I have had many roles, and every single one of them has required me to be a mentor at some level.
My journey as a mentor has taught me many things. Of course, I am by no means a guru on all things mentoring, but even so, as I’ve mentored many people over my career, several things have stood out to me. Here are a few.
So what are your thoughts? What do you think makes a great mentor? I would love to hear what others have to say on this topic. Like I said, I’m always learning something new – even how to be a better mentor.
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