[Fsf-friends] Mentoring students... from a friend in Bangalore

[Frederick Noronha]

Abhas is a friend in Bangalore who is doing some good work in mentoring
youngsters. I'd like to introduce his work to this list. It came up on the
Project Resource Centre list earlier. FN

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hi Fred and others...

On (11/12/02 23:33), Frederick Noronha wrote:

   > Hi Rajeev, Great to hear from you. I already know Abhas and have long
   > admired his work. DeepRoot's mentoring plans in PES IT need to be
   > replicated by the Free Software and Open Source communities elsewhere.
   > 
   > Permit me to share this note with friends on the PRC mailing list. 
   > 
   > Maybe you could share with us some of your experiences in mentoring
   > youngsters. What is the help that they need most? At which point do
   > bottlenecks come up? What could *really* make a difference to their
   > achievements?
   > 
   > Thanks again for getting in touch, FN

Here are my views on this issue...

Actually we have been working with students for more than a year and a
half before we started our PESIT lab. Working with students has taught
us a lot about project management and most importantly, about how to
work with students. In fact, today we continue to get project requests
from students all over India - Pune, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Lucknow,
Srinagar, Bangalore, lots of colleges in Karanataka and a whole lot of
cities in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. So at any point of time, there has
always been an exciting group of students working with us - either at
our development center or remotely over email.

Genearlly, we've met three types of students:

	a. Those who have a good knowledge of Linux and are prepared to
	start off working on projects right away. Here again they are some
	who have a some specific interests and want to work in a specific
	field and those who are not yet focused into something specific.

	b. Those who are just starters getting initiated into Linux through
	friends, books and Internet

	c. Those who have are looking at Linux as a way of expressing some
	of their ideas. Their ideas are not Linux specific but then they
	somehow understand that working on them in Linux could be the best
	way to do it.

We have different approaches to handling each type of student.
Whenever a group of students approach us we try to guage a couple of
things about them:

	a. Their seriousness for the project
	
	b. The amount of passion they have for their work/project
	
	c. Things they know and have worked with and which are not a part 
	   of their curriculum
	   
	d. The amount and work they are willing to put into their project

	e. Their motivations and drive

Its really important for us to guage this as this will tell us if its
worthwhile for us to spend productive time guiding them on their
projects. Guiding them on projects can be an enormous sag in our energy
and time if the students can't contribute equally in terms of what they
are supposed to be doing. Most of the times, we give them something in
which we have more than an academic or passing interest. Giving out
practical projects that can help achieve something specific is a part of
our committment to anyone who applies to us for projects.

We then go about analysing what sort of project the students could do.
Our project lists is divided into three parts:

	* A research and testing list
	* A development and programming list
	* A documentation list

Most projects go through all these three types of tasks. Students first
spend time research and test some software and understand basic
technology concepts. Then some of them go on to use this knowledge to
program while others use this basic knowledge to design and setup more
advanced systems and setups which are then tested for things such as
stability, performance and so on depending upon what the project is
about. 

We always make it a point to explain that you can't start programming
from day one. And that you have to spend some time experimenting with
different things so that you can use them later on to program.

At, PESIT since we were working in a more formal setting and with a
larger number students (around 60 now), we held formal introductory
classes for them. These started at the usual discources about Free
Software, Softwar Freedom, GNU/GPL, Linux, history and other such
elements and went on to make them capable enough to install, configure
and manage their own desktops and computers.

Our approach was to use very basic and bare-bones utilities (no GUIs or
abstraction layers here) to explain how the system boots up and how
networking and other stuff work on Linux. Debian GNU/Linux is the
distribution of choice in our Lab at PESIT and all students have to do
their own installations and configurations.

Anyway, there are a couple of things we have learnt about leading
students on these projects:

	* Students don't want a formal setting at all (which is why we are
	  very friendly with them with specific limits) - formality would
	  limit their exploration and growth

	* Students are mostly very capable and hard-working - their energies
	  just need to be drawn in the correct direction.

	* Moulding them in any way is up to the people guiding them - you
	  can get them to write ground-breaking software if you could motive
	  and guide them enough.

	* They just need guidance - we've found that most of them can find
	  their own way around technology. We just show them the basic tools
	  and how to use them (Internet, Mailing lists).

	* Its important to have an atmosphere congenial to information
	  sharing - all of us share more than information; we also share
	  code and experience. These values of sharing have to be imbibed in
	  students as well otherwise there is no growth at all!

	* They need to understand the larger picture about what they are
	  doing - so that they know what they are aiming at with their
	  project. Which is why it is important to give out practical
	  projects that can achieve something in the short run as well.
	  (They have 3-6 months for their project work.)

	* They need to be introduced to FLOSS traditions - that is the only
	  way they will ever remain active developers in the Linux community
	  contributing a lot over the period of many years to come.

Another thing we have understood is that sometimes it is difficult to
hold them accountable. So there are times when you can't do anything
because a student chooses not to do some work on time. At least, this is 
important for us if we give them a project on which we are also
depending upon. 

Well - these are somethings that came to my mind and I thought that I
should write them down. They are a lot more things of course...

All I'd like to add is that students can be very powerful force if 
they can be guided properly and professionally. Now its all up to all 
of us!

cheers,
abhas.

PS. Please mark a copy of your replies to me as I am not subscribed to
the PRC mailing list.

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