
Ask HN: How are people best using their mentoring sessions? - mentoring
I&#x27;ve just got a new mentor and wondering if anyone has any best practice &#x2F; common pitfalls to avoid when going into these sessions so that they can be as productive as possible?
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bitfield
Mentor here teaching Go and cloud native tech
([https://bitfieldconsulting.com/golang](https://bitfieldconsulting.com/golang))

In general, I think it's worth taking a bit of time to establish exactly what
it is you expect to get from mentoring, and how you and the mentor are going
to work together to achieve that. For example, if you want to get and pass the
interview for your dream job, that's an objective you can both work towards.
Or maybe your goal is just something "feel confident writing non-trivial Go
projects from scratch". You can then agree a plan of action that gets you
there.

Next, establish how you're going to work together. A regular meeting is
probably best, whether that's in person or by remote. Find a time that works
for both of you. If you're working on a real-life project, as opposed to an
exercise, will both you and the mentor contribute to it individually, as well
as pairing on it together? Or will the mentor just be giving you code reviews?
Will the mentor give you homework, exercises, and reading to do in between
sessions? If so, agree what the expectations are. Don't assume you will have
any free time at all to work on this stuff—most don't!

Finally, and this may seem obvious, as the mentee, this process is not always
going to be easy for you. You are basically surrendering yourself to someone
else (possibly a stranger) and saying "You know better than me. Please teach
me." If you're an engineer, for example, that probably doesn't come naturally
to you. It doesn't to me.

When you find yourself feeling frustrated, as you may well do, or even angry,
try to keep calm. If the mentor's advice seems to make no sense to you, ask
them to explain, and keep asking until you understand it. If you understand
it, but don't agree with it, don't argue; this is tiresome for both parties.
Default to assuming the mentor is right and you are wrong. After all, you're
here because they know more than you do. This is bound to mean that some of
the things you think you know are actually wrong, isn't it?

~~~
mentoring
Super helpful thanks. I've also read a lot about how mentoring should be
mentee-initiated. Is there anything that I can do as a mentee that can also
help the mentor be a better mentor?

~~~
bitfield
Well, speaking personally, it's very helpful if the mentee is willing to say
things like "I don't understand that, please explain it in a different way."
Often I think people just keep quiet, out of shyness or politeness, or not
wanting to appear dumb. But the moment you've lost the thread of what's
happening, you're both just wasting your time.

A good mentor can pick this up, and is constantly checking to see if the
mentee is really understanding, or whether they're just saying "Uh-huh". But
it's a two-way process. Sometimes you will genuinely struggle to get
something, and that's okay—everybody finds different things easy or difficult.
If this is happening, just say "Sorry, I'm having trouble with this. Can you
go through it again?" The mentor absolutely won't mind doing this. They're not
here to look smart, they're here to help you learn something, and until that's
happened, they haven't done their job. [If they do mind, get another mentor.]

------
tedyoung
When you do have your 1:1 synchronous time (probably remote, especially these
days), make sure you're organized. I work with some of my mentees to put
together a standard agenda for each "meeting". Sometimes that'll be a
discussion of some code, sometimes it'll be actual pairing, sometimes it'll be
just chatting about a recent interview experience.

Especially with respect to reviewing code, the further in advance you can
provide the code to the mentor, the better.

