From Passion to Profession: My Journey in Mentoring Future Developers

How It Began

I was born in a remote area where I had no idea what programming was. My first encounter with a computer was love at first sight. From that moment on, I dedicated the following years of my life to becoming a programmer.

I pursued a degree in computer science in college, where I quickly learned about Python, C++, and other programming languages. During this time, I started looking for an internship, marking the beginning of my career.

Years later, I visited my hometown and noticed that many talented people there had the potential to achieve more but weren't able to. Why was this the case? This topic deserves a detailed article, which I might write later.

This realization inspired me to help others improve their lives and their futures through programming.

The First Mentorship Attempt

After some time, I asked a friend of mine, who was a teacher, to help me find talented individuals to mentor. After a month of searching and preparing, I found my audience. Fifteen young people gathered around. I spoke with each one of them, leveraging my experience to identify their talents and determine where they would fit best. I categorized them into three groups: Front End, Back End, and UI Design.

At that time, I had a designer friend who was ready to assist. We had six front-end students, six back-end students, and three UI design students. Thus, we began our journey. I created a roadmap for the front-end and back-end students. As I lacked sufficient knowledge and experience in UI/UX design to create a roadmap, my friend took care of that.

For a year, I held meetings twice a week for each group, addressing their problems and issues, assigning projects, and forming teams (UI + FE + BE) to collaborate on projects. I taught them industry standards and best practices, helped them build professional resumes, prepared them for interviews, and assisted them in landing their first jobs.

They put in the effort and worked hard, and eventually, some of them found success. Today, out of the original fifteen, two are working as front-end developers, two as back-end developers, and one as a designer (although she didn't become a UI designer, her job still involves design).

Unfortunately, some of them gave up during the process, but overall, I am satisfied with the results.

Needless to say, this process significantly improved my abilities and taught me many new things, as they asked me all kinds of questions! I learned how to lead, motivate, and guide them. I can't recall how many times I encouraged them to stick to their plan.

The Journey Continues

After the first year of mentoring, a lot changed in my personal life. I moved to another city, got married, and experienced many other significant events. Originally, I had planned to continue mentoring, perhaps even multiple times. However, I paused for three years due to these life changes.

Now, I'm excited to restart this rewarding journey. Mentoring has always brought me immense joy and satisfaction, and I've had a lot of fun along the way. Many of my previous students have become great friends, and we’ve stayed in touch over the past three years. I'm now leveraging their help to start another round of mentoring. This time, I have even more support.

With more experience and assistance, I am confident that this new phase will be even more successful. I'm eager to guide a new group of talented individuals, helping them develop their skills and achieve their potential.

Stay Updated on Our Mentorship Journey!

I'm excited to share that I will be reporting weekly on the progress of my students, including what they will learn in the upcoming week. This will cover learning materials, exams, projects, and more.

If you're interested in becoming a front-end or back-end developer, you might find these updates incredibly useful. Follow along to gain insights, tips, and a sneak peek into the curriculum and projects that my students are working on.