Mentoring in CAP program
With the help of our industry club members, we have recently designed & delivered a completely new and innovative program to teach software engineering and artificial intelligence to CAP students at An-Najah University. During the program, students will complete 10 industry-based courses where they will work in small teams of 3 to 5 over a 16 week period with the support of a professional software engineer, or expert from industry who mentors and coaches their work.
As part of the courses, students will be using a standard industry toolchain of Eclipse, TensorFlow, python, Git (GitLab), JUnit, Mockito, Apache Ant, Jenkins, Gerrit and SonarQube to build automation, test automation, issue tracking, version control and code quality. These courses have been designed specifically to prepare students for the realities of modern software developments projects
CAP mentors have contributed to the industrial relevance of the courses by giving them access to an industry professional who can discuss with them, amongst other things:
Mentors primarily interact with their teams face-to-face on campus one or two sessions; other alternative forms of communication are also possible. We ask mentors to meet with their teams twice in one semester, with an optional third encounter at the end-of-semester assessment showcase.
+ What Will Mentors be contributing?
+ What benefits will mentoring bring to employers?
Mentoring will be beneficial to employers in several ways, including advertising their company, building relationships with students, and most importantly improving the quality of the entire cohort by helping to embed good software practices early on. It can be beneficial to junior developers to put mentoring on the CVs as it demonstrates continuing professional development (CPD), that allows mentors to progress in their own careers.
An optional showcase session at the end of the semester will provide an opportunity for mentors to assess all the teams presenting (other than their own mentees), which will provide contact for employers with a wider group of students for recruitment.
+ What will mentors do during the visits?
We will ask our students to take the initiative in asking questions and posing topics for discussion, and will give them guidance in preparing to get the most out of their mentor’s time. But we’ll also give mentors a “crib sheet” detailing issues that the students are currently facing, just in case a mentor has to deal with a particularly shy team.
Mentors can discuss their own personal experiences in the software industry, as well as giving career advice and help in preparing for job applications and the recruitment process. They can describe the toolsets in use in their own and other organizations, and the skills needed of a good software engineer. They can talk about different software processes and dealing with team working challenges.
+ Mentors can also provide technical help, subject to the following important rule:
We ask that mentors not to make any attempt to help students directly with their assessed coursework, for this or any other course unit.
It would naturally lead to an unfairness in the assessment process if some teams receive direct help from an experienced and talented industry professional while other teams do not. More importantly even than that, we want our students to become independent problem solvers, who are not fazed by a seemingly difficult challenge.
Mentors can help students by suggesting how they might go about looking for a solution if they were working in a real team, rather than by giving answers directly.
+ What if Mentors Want to Offer More?
We know from our experience with many organizations that they are prepared to be very generous with their time, and would be willing to engage with their student teams in between the meetings outlined above. This contact could be by e-mail, slack, gitlab or by Skype, for example, or even by inviting the team to visit your organization.
We’ll be very grateful for any additional contact mentors propose to have with their mentees, and will facilitate these kinds of interactions where we can. However, we won’t expect this level of contribution from all mentors, and will make sure that our students know not to hassle mentors in an irritating and unsolicited way.
+ Preparing mentors for the scheme
To prepare mentors for the scheme, a short mentor guide is available. If you were not able to attend one of the mentor orientation sessions face to face, the slides are available which give more background to the general aims of the mentoring scheme .
How to sign up
If you'd like to get involved in mentoring and haven't already been invited, please contact [email protected]
