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In my opinion, you shouldn’t try and take a position of mentor in the field if you don’t have the experience/authority to do so. You’ll just misguide her. Ther
by d--b 5y ago
In my opinion, you shouldn’t try and take a position of mentor in the field if you don’t have the experience/authority to do so. You’ll just misguide her.
There are things i can think of that you may try:
1. Try and do something techy yourself. Getting your own hands dirty will give you much better insights into what she’s getting into. Something that’s useful to you. I don’t know what you’re into, but if you have a hobby, it’s usually easy to find an idea for a tool that will help with that hobby. Just make sure you don’t try and take her place or something.
2. Probably better: Ask HER, if she could make something useful to you, or even better for your whole family / community. You may go for something a little more complicated, cause she’ll have more time to devote to this. IoT projects are very rewarding and touch a lot of aspect of tech. Home automation projects are great, like connected lightbulbs that respond to voice or if you have emails. Small games like wordle are cool too. Or things like community websites. When I was 18 (22 years ago!), I built a message board for me and my friends. It was really fun and then i could customize it for things we liked to do, like rating movies, and plan holidays. We used it for years, and only stopped when the ISP stopped supported the backend tech I was using.
In any case, the sooner she starts the better off she’ll be. The first thing is to pick up anything: a book or a tutorial online, and give it a shot.
Good luck, and have fun!!
- d--b 5y agoOh and tech-wise: the language doesn’t matter, the future of AI doesn’t matter. Most important is to find something she likes to do. Tech is only a tool to enable things to happen. When you do woodworking, it’s because you like nice furniture, not nice chisels.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago> When you do woodworking, it’s because you like nice furniture, not nice chisels. Some people just like chiseling.
- fastaguy88 5y agoI do not think this can be emphasized enough. Encourage her to pay attention to the things/ideas/puzzling/problem solving processes that bring her joy. Technologies change, but figuring out what engages you will make it much easier to make good decisions about what to explore next. Encourage her to find things she likes to do, and to think a bit about why she likes to do them. Some woodworkers like their product, others like the process. Recognizing the things that resonate with you is key.
- BiggsHoson 5y agoAgreed. I found that solving the tedium and annoyances of people's jobs is what gives me joy in my programming work.
- SAlpas 5y agoI honestly had not thought to ask her to make something for me, but it's a fantastic idea.
- AussieWog93 5y agoJust for what it's worth, a personal project of mine was how I got my first tech job. Just being someone who has actually built anything at all immediately puts you in the top 50% of grads. If she's interested in electronics, feel free to shoot us an email (link in bio) and I can set you up with a free USB Oscilloscope (debugging hardware for analog circuits).
- Taniwha 5y agoPoint her at AdaFruit.com, buy her a gift card In particular have her browse https://learn.adafruit.com/ https://learn.adafruit.com/ to look for stuff that interests her
- O_H_E 5y agoYes!, it is a really good idea. If she is still just "inclined" and not "off-to-the-races" yet and you have a good relationship (which sounds like you do) this could be so much fun.