DjangoCon Europe 2017 - Dial M For Mentor

Speaker: Mariatta Wijaya (contributor to python.org and CPython)

We're all on a mission to learn things. Learning things will be hard. How do you deal with roadblocks? Do you give in to excuses, give up, and go back to your comfort zone? Or …

Reach out for help

This requires a lot of effort. You need to overcome insecurities and excuses, such as "My questions are stupid."

Asking questions at random to the internet is hard, and it may not always lead to your goal. Finding mentors is at least equally hard, but it can pay off tremendously. It also involves a different set of doubt, such as "I'll just be wasting my mentor's time.", "I don't deserve help" etc. Do not listen to these problems.

Look for open source project maintainers to get some guidance - but keep in mind that it is not their job to just fix your problems. But if you show that you're interested in helping out, chances are good to receive excellent help. There are eg mentors for contributing to core Python.

Take care to respect your mentors. Keep in mind that it is your own responsibility to follow through with the learning. Take credit for your own work, but remember to thank your mentor.