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Gonna add a bit of my own difficulties with this: I've come across many sources that speak so highly of these mentorship relationships, and even go as far as t

Gonna add a bit of my own difficulties with this: I've come across many sources that speak so highly of these mentorship relationships, and even go as far as to recommend how to contact them and follow up and whatnot. It all sounds easy in theory, so romantic even, but in execution, I've found it to be much more complicated than that. How does one actually present themselves positively without coming off as desperate? And what if we are desperate (which often is the case for clueless people like myself)? I understand the notion of "When the student is ready, the master will come." and how it makes sense. But isn't it the clueless people that need the most help? What am I missing here? I certainly miss the days of grad school when I had advisors and a committee and entire buildings of people to network with and discuss everything. The moment I stepped into the "real world"; damn, was I clueless. I remember going to job interviews, following the advice I've been given from endless books and articles, eager to impress, but in retrospect most likely just made a fool out of myself. / end of rant

muzani 5y ago
I think desperation and vulnerability is actually appealing. A mentorship involves some metamorphosis. You need to kill a little part of your identity. You morph from a grad student to an employee, but in between, you're a vulnerable jobless person. But if you cling on to that old identity of being some brilliant person with a PhD, the change will be tough. I used to teach bootcamps. There is a skill bar - you have to touch type, you have to be able to focus on a problem for 15 minutes. If you can't do that, you need another mentor. But the hardest barrier is identity. People who join a 6 month bootcamp as an entrepreneur and leave as an entrepreneur -- they don't get much out of it and frequently don't write code after they're done. My favorite student was that Uber driver who went in, got a job after 2 months, and stopped attending classes. He just dived into it, destroyed his identity and came out new. He wasn't smarter than the others and that actually helped him. When job hunting, I ask feedback from every non-automated rejection. All of them are micro mentors, though some have gone out of the way to be detailed. Notably one guy rejected me for not doing well enough in the technical test, so I asked him how to improve. I expected a book or some modern algo training site, but nah, he got good by just playing with Project Euler and taught me that what I needed was patience, not leverage. Another one went through my "tell me about yourself" answer and taught me the importance of catching attention from the first sentence. At the time, I was too stubborn to take the advice, but years later, I planned for applications in the manner she taught me.
- samh748 5y ago
  This is really really great stuff. Thank you so much for elaborating!

muzani 5y ago

I think desperation and vulnerability is actually appealing. A mentorship involves some metamorphosis. You need to kill a little part of your identity. You morph from a grad student to an employee, but in between, you're a vulnerable jobless person. But if you cling on to that old identity of being some brilliant person with a PhD, the change will be tough. I used to teach bootcamps. There is a skill bar - you have to touch type, you have to be able to focus on a problem for 15 minutes. If you can't do that, you need another mentor. But the hardest barrier is identity. People who join a 6 month bootcamp as an entrepreneur and leave as an entrepreneur -- they don't get much out of it and frequently don't write code after they're done. My favorite student was that Uber driver who went in, got a job after 2 months, and stopped attending classes. He just dived into it, destroyed his identity and came out new. He wasn't smarter than the others and that actually helped him. When job hunting, I ask feedback from every non-automated rejection. All of them are micro mentors, though some have gone out of the way to be detailed. Notably one guy rejected me for not doing well enough in the technical test, so I asked him how to improve. I expected a book or some modern algo training site, but nah, he got good by just playing with Project Euler and taught me that what I needed was patience, not leverage. Another one went through my "tell me about yourself" answer and taught me the importance of catching attention from the first sentence. At the time, I was too stubborn to take the advice, but years later, I planned for applications in the manner she taught me.

samh748 5y ago
This is really really great stuff. Thank you so much for elaborating!