When I decided to make a career change, I went back for a second Bachelors - this time in Computer Science through the Oregon State University PostBacc Computer Science program. At the time, I was in one of the early cohorts to graduate and since then, the program has grown substantially. One of the additions in recent years has been a partnership with Mentor Collective to pair graduates with current students in a mentoring relationship.

For Winter ‘21 term, I’ve been paired with 3 student in the program - which brings my total pairings to around 10. But what prompted this post is the meeting I had with one of my mentees this past week. He is far along in the program - and has completed 2 sucessful internships and already has accepted a job at one of the FAANG companies pending his graduation. For convenience, and to avoid his real name, I will call him ‘Chris’.

To be honest, my impression on reading Chris’s introduction email and browsing his LinkedIn was “What in the world can I possibly contribute here?”. He’s clearly on a very sucessful track.

As I’ve gotten to know Chris better, it is evident that he’s one of the students with a clear sense of ownership and initiative when it comes to his career. While most of the mentees I’ve had over the past 2 years are willing to talk with some prompting, and have occassionally reached out with certain requests - resume feedback, etc. - Chris almost immediately scheduled a 15 minute Google Meet for us to talk. That 15 minutes turned into nearly an hour long conversation.

Chris had clearly been thinking about his pending graduation and life as a ‘real’ software developer in the near future and came prepared with a list of questions - which were all mainly centered on wanting to hear my experiences in industry. He fully understood that my own answers here might not reflect what he runs into in his upcoming role, but was very keen to hear my own take on topics like:

  • Comparing my experience at Garmin with what I’m doing now at Intel
    • What are differences in team organization and size?
    • What do I feel were important differences in management’s organization?
    • How did I feel about making a switch from embedded to more of a full-stack environment?
    • Which company did I enjoy working at the most and why?
  • How did my family adjust to relocations?
  • What did I think of benefit packages and differences?

He took ownership of the mentoring relationship

This was my biggest take-away - Chris came in to the mentoring program knowing what he wanted out of it, and was prepared to drive the relationship forward. So many students seem to sign up and expect to be spoon-fed by their mentor - but that’s not how these relationships are designed to work. Sure, I can check in periodically and make sure that the student is proceeding OK scholastically, but that’s not the point of building a mentor relationship.

A mentor is a resource for the mentee. We’re another tool in your toolbelt, but it’s up to the mentee to decide when and where to apply the tool and for what benefit.