HACKER Q&A
📣 throwaway_yc

I Am Looking for a Mentor


Hello HNers,

For past 10 years, I have tried to self learn programming language and web dev, but I could not succeed in learning any langauage. I had tried to abandon this career path, but I always find some inspiration, and coming back to the same path to learn language. Currently I am learning Python for web dev. I need a mentor who can guide me through.

Please help.


  👤 saivan Accepted Answer ✓
When you engage into any transaction, you have to gain something and the other person has to gain something. You'll find that very few people are going to be willing to give up their time to help you, and those that do will do it because they feel good giving up some of their time to help somebody who is really trying to learn on their own. So in that situation, you are getting much more than you are giving. If you're looking for somebody to help you out of kindness, which I'm happy to do in certain scenarios, I'd expect that you have:

(a) Shown them some research effort (and are) (b) Are asking very specific question that takes little effort on my part to help you with

I have to be frank with you, asking for a mentor to guide you through the basics is not really a fair thing to ask of anybody. Especially since there are hundreds of people who have given up many hours of their time trying to create learning material that you can use to learn your basics - they are all over the internet (googling learn to code will provide many useful hits). I worry that perhaps your idea of what a mentor should be, is not realistic.

You must take a greater responsibility for yourself. Remember, with enough effort, you can do it! If you need help along the way, there are many places you can go for help - (stackoverflow, discord chats, etc...)

Best of luck on your journey :)


👤 solumos
No mentor is going to be able to help you based on the information you've provided.

> For past 10 years, I have tried to self learn programming language and web dev, but I could not succeed in learning any langauage.

Why haven't you been successful? What do you want a mentor to help you with?

> I had tried to abandon this career path, but I always find some inspiration, and coming back to the same path to learn language. Currently I am learning Python for web dev. I need a mentor who can guide me through.

Why does your inspiration fade? What kind of guidance do you need?


👤 NonEUCitizen
Try taking a class, online or in-person.