Why Every Coder Needs a Mentor

Growing up, coming from an Indian Parentage- I’ve been really blessed to have my Parents as my Mentors and friends to guide me during every step of my life- Throughout my Childhood and even during my School Life.

My Parents were there to guide me during every step of my life, To correct me and to show my next path.

I had always this love for ‘Coding’ in general and I wanted to pick up Programming as a my Career Path, Which I did.

Source: Meme Generator

Programmer

‘Coder’ is a very generic Term. Anyone who is interested in working or works on Software already is in the Software industry.

In 2018, Potentially you don’t even need to go to school for learning. Just google anything that you want to learn. Join an online bootcamp or an online MOOC. Maybe jump on a doctored path such as a Nanodegree.

Mentor

Last Year, I decided to get a taste of the Deep Learning Nanodegree. Deep Learning back then, wasn't openly taught by any MOOC and the ND appeared to be great.

Udacity-among the many amazing offerings in a ND, connects us with a Mentor who helps us, guides us and keeps us a check on us during our Learning Path. However, once you ‘graduate’, you’ll have to part ways with your Mentor.

So, what does a ‘graduate’ or maybe someone who isn’t on a Udacity learning path do?

As a learner, or even a Creator- There are multiple paths to mastering or getting started, and you need someone who can guide you, correct you and show the path that is best for you: To help boost your confidence and also allow yourself to keep a reality check. You need a Mentor.

Any field in CS has a huge depth to it and you can get lost easily.

Connecting with Mentors

Connecting with Mentors is really hard.

• Professionals in the field are simply busy.
• It is difficult to find someone who might be interested in helping you.
• You don’t know how to approach someone.

My DL Mentors

My approach to the same has been brute-force Emailing every connection on my Linkedin that has an amazing profile and could give me pointers.

Luckily enough, I found really great Mentors and friends via the Fast AI Community.

Radek Osmulski has been amazing source of inspiration and help for many of us in the community. Radek has always helped me and guided me whenver I needed correction or I felt intimidated on my Deep Learning path.

Tuatini Godard has also been a really good friend and mentor. Even though he is really busy with his freelance projects-whenver I’d contact him on slack or the forums. He will always take the time to help me.

Lucas Vazquez an amazing friend and a RL ninja, has always helped me, and very often helped me debug my code too!

I’m grateful to people like them who would take the time and energy to correct and guide a noob on his learning path and always help me correct and refine my articles.

Giving Back

I’ve always been a fan of an open community and open source itself. Here’s how I’m trying to give back to the community:

AI Saturdays: I take much nerdy pride in the Title assigned to me: “AI Geek Leader”- I help mentor the huge global community on the forums and by curating learning paths.

Mentorcruise: Mentorcruise is one of the exclusive platforms that allows you to connect with Mentors. I‘m a Computer Vision, Deep Learning Mentor and I try to share my little knowledge that I’ve picked up during my Self Taught Path.

At the same time, I’d like to leave my Email here for anyone who’d like to get in touch: sanyam.bhutani05@gmail.com

If you found this article interesting and would like to stay in touch, you can find me on Twitter here.

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Why Every Coder Needs a Mentor was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.