Knowledge exchange is a two-way street, and mentoring helps to develop professionally both mentors and students of bachelor’s programs supported by the Lviv IT Cluster. The Mentor Support Program was created within the framework of the IT Expert project, to which, in particular, the Ciklum company joined.
Mentoring is the missing piece in today’s technical education. Communicating with mentors, students learn from their practical experience. This helps to immediately correctly determine the vector of development and not to waste time on unnecessary things. For mentors, this is an opportunity to deepen their expertise, improve their leadership skills, and create joint projects with students. The Mentor Support Program includes two main directions: encouraging mentors on the part of the Lviv IT Cluster and on the part of IT companies that join the program.
Marian Krekoten is one of the mentors from the Ciklum company. He’s Ruby On Rails Expert, mentor at the DevOps & Data Engineering program at Lviv Polytechnic. Marian has been engaged in mentoring for more than five years: for two of them he has been working with students of bachelor’s programs supported by the Lviv IT Cluster. In the last academic year, he worked with our University students.
«Mentoring other employees of the company and students are different things. However, mentoring students is particularly interesting. During my studies, I wanted not only to communicate with teachers, but also with practitioners who know how it really works, what you need to know what to pay attention to. Actually, with my mentoring, I try to compensate for what I lacked during my student years.
Usually, students want you to take the lead and completely build their work. I immediately tell them that I will not do this. Because a mentor is someone who should help, but not do the project instead of the students. I am available for students almost 18 hours a day, they can come at any time, ask questions – and I will answer», says Marian Krekoten.
Volunteers who share key knowledge and skills with students deserve comprehensive support, and the Lviv IT Cluster Mentor Support Program is an excellent synergy tool that allows the community, its companies and mentors to join forces for the development of the future generation.
For more details, visit the Lviv IT Cluster website.