Prepare for Your Mentoring Session
If you want to make real progress in your mentoring session, there’s a crucial first step you’ll need to take: preparation. It’s up to you to determine what you want to get out of the session so your discussions with your mentor can be focused on what you need. To do that, think about the following topics, and take notes so you can refer to them during your mentoring session.
Your Progress
Start by going over the goals you set during the previous mentoring session, and ask yourself the following:
What goals have you achieved? How did you go about achieving those goals? What resources, techniques, or methods did you use?
Are there any goals you didn’t achieve? Why not?
Your mentor needs to know where you made progress and where you got stuck, so they can support you as much as possible.
Your Feelings
How do you feel about your progress and your training program overall? Your mentoring session can also be a chance to discuss how you’re feeling, whether it’s satisfaction, frustration, fear of failure, etc. Your mentor can then tailor their support to your emotional state, so you get the best possible help.
Your Sticking Points
What’s not working for you, and why do you think that is? Try to be as specific as possible when forming your hypotheses.
For example, if the problem you’re having has to do with an error in your code, try to explore it further:
When exactly did this error appear?
What might be the reasons for this error appearing?
When you show up to your session with your problems clearly identified, you can go straight to the heart of the matter with your mentor, and they can confirm or refute your hypotheses.
Your Questions
Once you’ve identified your needs and where you’re getting stuck in the project, you can list any questions you’d like to ask your mentor during the session. Here are some examples of different forms your questions might take:
You need to . . . | Examples of questions |
Apply a method | “Can you explain how to . . . ”? |
Understand a concept better | “Can you explain the purpose of . . . ?”; “How do I use . . . ?” |
Get feedback on your work | “What do you think of this deliverable?”; “How do you think I could improve it?” |
Put your work into perspective | “How do you apply these skills/methods in your own work?”; “How will what I’m working on be useful at a real company?” |
Obtain more resources | “Could you point me to any other articles/resources to help me with . . . ?” |
Have a Constructive Discussion With Your Mentor
Your mentoring session will go by faster than you think! To make the conversation as constructive as possible, follow the approach below for your session, referencing the notes you’ve prepared ahead of time:
Take a few minutes to discuss your progress.
Explain what specifically you’d like to get out of the session—where you’re getting stuck, and the questions you’d like to go over with your mentor.
Start your discussion and look at your deliverables in detail together.
4. End the session by setting goals for the next session.
Capitalize on Your Mentoring Session
During the mentoring session, your mentor will give you feedback on your work. This feedback is invaluable because after the session you can use it to improve your deliverables. So, after each session take some time to update your work to give yourself a solid foundation for moving forward.
What if my mentoring sessions aren’t really helping me progress?
Have you tried discussing it with your mentor? Sometimes, explaining the problem, starting with your feelings, can help unravel the situation. If you’ve tried that already and nothing has changed, it’s time to change mentors. That way, you’ll have a chance to start off on the right foot with another professional. If you want to change mentors, contact our team using the contact form.
And what better way of hearing this advice than straight from the mouths of mentors and students who’ve been through it all before? Joy, Mike, Alexandra and Virginia are back to share their experiences in this video.
Let’s Recap!
Before your mentoring session, take some time to review your progress, your feelings, your sticking points, and any questions you’d like to address.
The session will generally look like this:
You’ll explain where you stand.
You’ll have your main discussion on your deliverables and where you’re getting stuck.
You’ll set goals for the next session.
After your session, take some time to apply your mentor’s feedback to your work.
You can switch mentors at any time during your training.
Now you know how your mentoring sessions can help you progress through your path. It’s time for the final step: your end-of-project assessment. See you in the next and last chapters!
