hackyourfuture / mentors

The guide on how to mentor at HackYourFuture

Introduction for new mentors

Welcome to HackYourFuture. We really appreciate your interest in being part of our community. In this repo, we give you an overview of the different volunteering positions available. By volunteering, you contribute to our main goal: help trainees gain the necessary skills to find a job as a programmer. HackYourFuture has now helped over 200 trainees find work as a programmer. This is only possible with the support of you: our volunteers.

Curriculum

To facilitate the learning process, volunteers--together with HYF staff--have developed a curriculum, which you can find here. The complete 7-month program is divided into different modules, each building on the one before. We encourage you to have a look at the curriculum and think about which modules connect most to your professional experience. Another useful resource is the Study Manual, which we give to trainees on their introduction day. It provides an overview of our program and might answer some of the questions you still have after reading this sheet.

Structure

Every two months, a new cohort of +/- 15 trainees starts the course. This means that we have 4 cohorts (+/- 60 trainees) in different stages of the curriculum at any given point. HackYourFuture is mostly self-study and you can find the structure for our trainees here. On Sunday (12:00 to 14:00), we host online Q&A sessions for each cohort, about the assignments and the concepts of that week. As a volunteer, you’ll help out per module. Modules are between two and four weeks long. So we ask volunteers to commit for about three weeks to HYF. It’s up to you how often you want to help out with a module. We need at least three mentors per module. Check the table below for an overview and explanation of the different volunteering roles.

Roles

Role	Topic	Time estimation per week
Assignment support	As an assignment mentor, you check and provide feedback on the weekly assignments of the trainees, and optionally revise their assessments. Feedback should be provided within a week after the assignment has been submitted.	6 hours. Flexible
(Online) Q&A lead	During the week, you help provide feedback on the assignment. On Sunday, you host a Q&A session for the cohort that’s following the module you mentor. To become a Q&A lead, you must first have experience as Assignment Support. Afterwards, you’ll help out a more experienced mentor for a module, so you learn how to lead a session.	3 hours Sunday, 2 hours preparation, 2 hours assignment support
Personal mentor	Some of our trainees need additional support throughout the program to be ready for their first job. This is exactly what you do as a personal mentor. We ask you to organize at least one, but preferably two video calls per week, of at least an hour, when assigned to a trainee.	4 hours. Flexible
Project leader	There are multiple short projects in the curriculum that require guidance. As project leader, you provide this guidance by acting like a Tech lead / Product owner / Scrum master in one	7 hours, 1 week
Post Graduation Package	As a mentor, you work closely with two graduates who are preparing for their first internship. You support them in a 4 to 8 weeks program.	3 hours. Flexible

Communication

Most of our communication is done via Slack. This is the place where we ask you if you can help out with a certain module, and where you can keep in touch with both trainees and other mentors. Next to that, we have channels for each cohort and the main goal here is to support trainees with questions or their assignment during the week. If you are not in Slack yet, ask Joséphine 💁

What we expect from you

For an overview and explanation of our core values, check out this repo.

For you, the mentors, it's important to know that you're a role-model for our trainees. They can learn by example to:

• Stick to deadlines
• Communicate professionally and on time
• Be proactive

Conclusion

We hope that by reading this, you have a better idea of what it means to volunteer at HackYourFuture. If you have any question, you can always send us an email at [email protected] or (once you have been added to our Slack channels) send us a Slack message.

Looking forward to working with you!

mentors's Issues

Unclear phrasing, missing text, consistency

Hi. While reading this document, I've noticed a few minor problems which would be nice to fix:

• usage of 'RePo' term - what does it mean, why is it spelled like that? it's just 'repo' from 'repository', or something else? It appears twice in the page (once at start and once near end)

• the 'Introduction' paragraph ends abruptly, is something missing there?: "If you have" (just that)

• invalid link here: " have developed a curriculum, which you can find here" - https://github.com/HackYourFuture/mentors/blob/main/www.github.com/hackyourfuture -> this I think is fixed in a currently open PR

• in 'Structure' paragraph: "Check the table at the top for an overview and explanation of the different volunteering roles." - which table at the top? (there is not table above, but there is one under it..)

• 'What we expect from you' paragraph - in the list after 'They can learn by example to:' should start all items in a consistent way, either lowercase or uppercase (now it's mixed)

• spelling of 'pro-active' - would it be better 'proactive' ? (seems the more common spelling)