BP614: Using ex-students as mentors Survey of Mentors
1. Why were you keen to join the mentoring project?
• Because you asked me to, and it allows me to give back something to the industry
• I like to help people; and I was asked if I would, and it is not a time consuming task; I couldn't turn it down.
• Because I had a mentor when I was first starting programming, and he showed me a few things that really made me excited about the discipline.
• I thought that it’s something that would help the students to make better and more informed decisions about their tertiary education. The Uni doesn't manage to get the feel of the course across to prospective students as they are unable to look at it from the perspective of a first year student. As such this program allows students to get a first hand view of what people that were in their shoes discovered and hence make better decisions based on our experience.
2. What help you felt you would be able to provide for the students?
• To be able to answer the questions by providing real life examples from my job.
• Giving programming advice - solutions to problems and bugs, understanding what was happening with code etc. Also to help with designing issues; but mainly regarding the programming parts of the course.
• I'm not sure, but I was keen to do anything that I could.
• I felt I'd be able to give a realistic perspective on a course where the information you get can be pretty one sided. BCGD at Waikato is a great course but getting an effective overview on what the course prospectus contains or how the students find the course is difficult.
3. What sort of mentoring have you been able to provide?
• Answering e-mails.
• Just emails, indirectly.
• I've already shown a few students what to expect from the course and told them what first year is all about. And if any get into the course I'll be able to give them advice on how the tutors mark and advice on how there work is coming along, provided I'm not swamped by my own assignments of course.
4. What direct benefits you have seen for students from your input?
• None yet, but I hope I have helped them some how.
• I've only had brief feedback, however I did only send brief emails.
• They now have a realistic view on how the course is run and what they will be learning as well as how much effort they will need to put into the work.
5. What are the main constraints on your ability to participate as fully as you'd want to?
• None.
• Lazyness; stuff happening at University; nobody has asked me directly for help.
• Distance.Thanks for the opportunity to help. If I spend an extended period in Hamilton in the future, I'd like to contribute more actively. Please keep in touch.
• My workload is insane.
6. I've tried not to make the emails intrusive or take too much of your time. For instance I haven't allowed the students to email you direct with their problems. What other ways would you like to help without it becoming a burden?
• Not sure; I don't think the emails are/would have been too much of a burden; University students (well, at least myself and other CS students) seem to have a lot of free time - a lot of the time we will have classes distributed inconveniently through the day and have nothing much to do but hang around at Uni for hours at a time.