Do you think mentorship matters more than online courses?
Do you think mentorship matters more than online courses?
Both mentorship and online courses are important to the development of a developer, though they have different purposes. Online courses are also good when you want to learn organized content at your own time. They are step by step instructions and training, practice and theory, which are likely to empower you with the strong background in new technologies. In the case of beginners, courses might be the simplest approach to exposure to a programming language, programming framework or programming tool.
But mentorship is one step further as it is personal and contextual. A mentor does not merely impart knowledge, he or she helps you to navigate the real world, provides criticism of your work, and offers advice based on his or her own career experience. As opposed to online courses, mentorship will make you evade typical errors, know how in the industry, and have confidence in decision making. It is a question of putting knowledge into practice rather than merely gaining knowledge.
As a matter of fact, the combination of both is the most effective. Online courses can provide you with the basics fast, and mentorship gives you an opportunity to sharpen those skills and go in areas that books or videos cannot address, such as communicating, problem-solving, and developing the career. In that way, mentorship can be more important in terms of long term development and career achievement, yet online courses can be used to form the basis.
This is a best topic to discuss! In my opinion both mentorship and online courses play vital roles. Courses give structure, fundamentals, and flexibility to learn at your own pace, while mentorship adds real-world context, guidance, and confidence. The strongest growth comes from combining both—courses build the foundation, and mentorship sharpens skills and supports long-term career success.
Some superb point of view, ! I am totally in support of the combination approach as the sweet spot. Your comments about mentorship giving that real-world navigation really speak to me – there is something priceless about having someone who has been through the path you are now on and can warn you about the landmines you can see in your path. Internet classes are great to reinforce that base knowledge in a short period of time in a highly organized fashion, but as you pointed out, they cannot provide the same personalized feedback and industry experience that mentorship offers.
I believe that among the factors that make mentorship especially effective is its ability to deal with the discrepancies between theory and practice. You can view a million tutorials on best practices in coding, but it is when a mentor looks at your code and tells you why some methods work better in real production situations, that is the magic. The career guidance part that you touched upon is enormous as well. A mentor can assist you in not only knowing the what and how of development, but also the why of career choices and industry trends.
In any case, I like the way you have put online courses in the context of the builder. They are so open and allow you to explore the various fields where you might be interested and to find what really interests you and then go in search of mentorship in those particular fields. This is a beautiful learning ecosystem that is formed by combining structured learning and custom-designed guidance. Good post – this got me to reflect on the way I have been learning myself!