For Mentors
As an industry professional, you can make a meaningful impact on our students even without a project idea. Many students propose their own projects, and they need experienced mentors to guide them, provide feedback, and hold them accountable.
Why Mentor?
Section titled “Why Mentor?”Our students often come up with excellent project ideas on their own. These range from personal portfolio projects to open-source contributions to startup concepts. While these projects are often technically solid, students benefit enormously from:
- External perspective: An industry guide who can validate their direction and offer real-world feedback
- Accountability: Regular check-ins help students stay on track and not let scope creep or get distracted
- Career guidance: Mentors can share their experience and help students make better technical and professional decisions
- Network connections: Introductions to potential collaborators, employers, or resources
Not having a project idea shouldn’t stop you from helping. Our students need mentors who can guide them through the process, ask tough questions, and help them deliver something they’re proud of.
What We Expect From You
Section titled “What We Expect From You”As a mentor, we ask:
- availability from the beginning of Fall term until the end of Spring term;
- at least 1 hour of your time each week (per team/project) to meet with students and answer their questions;
- technical guidance from you or someone in your organization (let us know if you need help finding a technical mentor);
- to set, together with the students, clear expectations about the work to be completed and how you will evaluate it;
- to review their work, answer questions, and help them navigate challenges
- to validate their work each term using the project partner evaluation rubrics through surveys sent by the instruction team; check the academic calendar for the term dates.
Your evaluations account for 25% of each student’s grade (alongside 25% from peer evaluations and 50% from assignment-specific rubrics assessed by course instructors).
You don’t need to be an expert in every technical detail. Your support, encouragement, and perspective are what matter most. Students are looking for guidance on how to work in a real-world project environment, and that’s where your experience shines.
What You Can Expect From Us
Section titled “What You Can Expect From Us”As the instruction team, we will:
- match you with a student team based on your interests and their project needs;
- share the student’s contact information and project details at the start of Fall term;
- provide rubrics and surveys for you to evaluate the team each term;
- be available if you have questions or concerns about the students or coursework;
- help you understand what’s expected at each stage of the project.
How to Get Started
Section titled “How to Get Started”If you’re interested in mentoring a team without submitting a project, we’d love to hear from you.
When you reach out, please let us know:
- A bit about your background and industry experience
- The types of projects or areas you’d be interested in mentoring (e.g., web development, mobile apps, data science, machine learning, open source, etc.)
- Any preferences for team size or project scope
We’ll follow up with you before Fall term starts to discuss next steps and match you with a suitable team.
Have a Project Idea After All?
Section titled “Have a Project Idea After All?”If you do have a project idea but just weren’t sure if it was suitable, we encourage you to submit it anyway. We can help you refine it to make it a great fit for our students.