Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-project (930 mails)

[Jim Henderson <hendersj@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:12:06 -0400, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

> > * lack of mentoring program (it's not easy to start contributing if you
> > don't have long history of working with computers, which is many
> > women's case , AND finding a mentor to help you get started is not
> > incredibly easy)
>
> is it harder for a woman to find a mentor than a man?

As someone who's participating in a mentoring program, I can say that 
finding someone who has the right skill set to help augment the 
"mentee's" skill set isn't as easy as it might seem it should be.

I don't think that's necessarily a problem that's a function of the 
gender of either party in the relationship.

Often times, it seems that it's useful to have a third party assess the 
skills prospective mentors have and then match people up based on the 
needs of the mentee.  For my own mentoring relationship (and I'm a mentee 
in that relationship), I never would have even met my mentor if it hadn't 
been for a third party doing that assessment, and the pairing is quite 
good.

Perhaps it would be useful to incorporate some sort of formal mentoring 
program within the community.  Could the Google SoC program provide some 
guidance on how to do this effectively?  (That program seems to be 
somewhat like a mentoring program and also seems to be quite successful, 
so maybe that would be a good starting point)

Jim

-- 
 Jim Henderson
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