F# Mentorship program

Many of us have been lucky to have mentors in our careers who have helped us become better programmers (and people).

We think that mentorship is a powerful way to help you learn and be inspired, especially in a new paradigm such as functional programming. So we here at the F# Software Foundation (FSSF) would like to help make to mentorship possible for those in the F# community who would benefit from it.

And so, we have created the FSSF Mentorship program!

The program is free-of-charge. The mentors are volunteering their time to benefit the F# community. However, in return, we ask that “pay it forward” later on, by mentoring someone else or contributing to the F# community in other ways (such as helping with F# open-source projects).

Who can Participate?

This program is useful for developers of all levels, with or without F# experience. The F# mentorship program connects you to an experienced F# developer who can help you improve your F# programming skills and best practices for developing in F#.

You must be a member of the FSSF to participate in the program. Membership is free - see http://foundation.fsharp.org/membership.

How does it work?

Mentors and mentees meet for approximately 60-90 minutes per week for 6-8 weeks. Because mentors and mentees are not typically in the same geographic location, or even the same time zone, most mentoring sessions are remote. Skype, VS Live Share (for VS Code or Visual Studio), and Slack are excellent resources for mentoring sessions.

Membership in the F# Software Foundation Required

You must be a member of the F# Software Foundation (FSSF) to apply. Membership is free - see the membership page for details.

Participation/Registration

Applications for the 2020 Fall mentorship round (#9) are now open. Both prospective mentors and mentees need to apply here.

Schedule

2020-09-07 - 2020-10-07: Applications accepted for round 9

2020-10-08 - 2020-10-12: Volunteers will review applications and pair mentors/mentees

2020-10-19 - 2020-12-14: Mentors mentees meet once a week during 8 weeks for a mentorship session

Imposter Syndrome Disclaimer (for prospective mentors)

You can be a mentor! You really can!

There might be a little voice inside that tells you you’re not ready; that you need more experience, more F# in production, more blog posts before you can mentor someone else.

Your F# experience is valuable and can help those just learning F#. It’s okay if you don’t know everything about the language or the core libraries, or all of the details of popularly used frameworks. Nobody does. The F# community and the FSSF are here to help you! You can do it!

Thank you for considering being a mentor!

This disclaimer was adapted from Adrienne Friend’s Imposter Syndrome Disclaimer

For more information on the mentorship program, see the main page or follow on twitter @fsharporg. Members can also join the mentorship channel on FSSF’s Slack.

If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch via email (education(at)fsharp.org) or twitter @fsharporg.